9/25/2009

Tyson Foods could face several back-to-back fraud and breach-of-contract trials in McCurtain County District Court, if motions now be-fore the court are approved, records show.

The first case was filed in No-vember 2003 by pork producers Gene and Ernestine Horton.

The suit alleged that the plain-tiffs had agreed to purchase about 968 and other property from Tyson for $101,420, and said Tyson agents assured the couple that swine were healthy and disease free.

But the swine purchased were in-fected with various diseases and were unfit for the purposes for which they were purchased.

Plaintiffs are alleging fraud, breach of contract and breach of warranty, and seeking 37 years of lost profits plus punitive damages.

That case is currently set for non-jury trial before District Judge Willard Driesel on Oct. 22. Repre-senting the plaintiffs is J.P. Lon-gacre.

In a separate case filed in May of this year, dozens of poultry produc-ers are suing Tyson, also alleging fraud and breach of contract in-volving chickens and feed they received, and requirements of the poultry company.

This week, plaintiffs’ attorney Tony Benson filed a motion seek-ing sequential five to seven sepa-rate trials, and asked that the trials be held sequentially beginning in December.

Benson is asking for the expe-dited trials, before discovery is complete, because delay would cause the growers “severe eco-nomic hardship.”

The affidavits of 27 of the suit’s 52 plaintiffs were filed this week to support that claim.

“Each of these plaintiffs faces bankruptcy, foreclosure or other severe events if their trial is de-layed…as attested in those affida-vits.”

“Plaintiffs face an economic emergency due to the actions taken against them by Tyson,” one mo-tion states.

“These plaintiffs have all attested that a trial setting prior to January of 2009 is necessary for them to prevent foreclosure and/or bank-ruptcy…The affidavits demonstrate that the only opportunity that plain-tiffs have to avoid these extreme economic events is to have their cases heard prior to Jan. 15, 2009.

In the poultry case, plaintiffs al-lege that through “threats, demands and acts of self-dealing,” Tyson and some individual defendants purposefully and systematically destroyed the value of the growers’ poultry farms to increase Tyson’s own profits.

Earlier this year, poultry growers in neighboring LeFlore County were awarded $21 million in a case against OK Foods. That suit alleged violations of federal law.