Jury awards $9.25M to cattle raisers

A federal jury on Wednesday awarded $9.25 million to cattle raisers who said large meat packing companies had underpaid producers for live cattle. The class action lawsuit was filed by three men and sought almost $43 million from Tyson Fresh Meats Inc., Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. doing business as Excel Corp., Swift Beef Co. and National Beef Packing Co. The jury awarded damages of $4 million from Tyson, $3 million from Cargill-Excel and $2.25 million from Swift, Reed Rasmussen, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, told The Associated Press. The jury ruled in favor of National Beef. From April 2, 2001, to May 11, 2001, the U.S. Department of Agriculture misreported the boxed beef cutout prices for choice and select cuts of meat. The lawsuit alleged the meatpackers knowingly used that information to pay less to cattle producers than they would have if the cutouts were correct. The packers denied knowing about the faulty reports before the USDA acknowledged them. The erroneous reports were the result of a flawed computer program that took into account a lesser quality of beef when calculating cutouts for choice and select cuts. As a result, the choice and select cutouts were too low. Tom White, an Omaha, Neb., lawyer who represented the plaintiffs, said the packers treated his side's witnesses, the cattle producers and the jury with contempt. The suit was filed by Herman Schumacher of Herreid, Michael Callicrate of Kansas and Roger Koch of Nebraska....