DATE: Thursday, October 16, 1997            TAG: 9710160551

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   75 lines

EX-WORKER FILES LIBEL SUIT AGAINST MEATPACKER

A former sewage worker at Smithfield Foods Inc. is suing the meatpacking giant, claiming that the company defamed him in newspaper ads earlier this year by portraying him as a liar.

Shannon Dell Williams of Newport News was a whistle-blower who charged publicly last spring that his former employer doctored pollution reports and that sewage operators were known to drink beer or sleep instead of monitor hog wastes at company slaughterhouses in Isle of Wight County.

His lawsuit seeks $2.55 million.

His claims, first published in The Virginian-Pilot, came as Smithfield Foods was being sued by state and federal regulators who said the company falsified and destroyed documents and polluted the Pagan River, a Chesapeake Bay tributary.

A federal judge this summer imposed a $12.6 million fine against Smithfield Foods, the largest civil penalty ever assessed under the national Clean Water Act.

The state case against Smithfield, the East Coast's largest pork processor, is pending. A hearing is scheduled for December.

In response to Williams' charges, Smithfield Foods bought ads in The Pilot, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Washington Post. Signed by CEO Joseph W. Luter III, the ads said that the company had investigated the charges and found no wrongdoing, and that Williams should be ``regarded as a disgruntled employee who made such charges in retaliation for his dismissal.''

Williams was fired from Smithfield Foods on July 3, 1996, after refusing an order to return to work later that day ``to pick weeds,'' according to his lawsuit.

``Although the full-page advertisements were published by Smithfield Foods with the expressed intention of letting the readers `Know the truth . . .,' its overall effect was to wrongfully portray Williams as a liar,'' reads the lawsuit, filed this month in a Newport News court.

Stephen A. Dunnigan, a Newport News attorney representing Williams, said his client has suffered from the ads, both personally and professionally.

``He has been approached by a number of people - including some on the street - who've said, `Oh, you're that guy,' '' Dunnigan said Wednesday. ``Shannon wants to have the damage done to his name undone.''

Anthony Troy, a Richmond-based lawyer for Smithfield Foods, had not seen the lawsuit as of Wednesday but said, ``I'm sure the company will stand by the ads regarding this entire matter.''

The lawsuit accuses Smithfield Foods of defamation of character, insulting words and intentional infliction of emotional distress. For each count, Williams is seeking $850,000 in damages, for a total of $2.55 million.

Dunnigan said his client is not ruling out an out-of-court settlement, although any such relief would have to include an apology or clarification by Smithfield Foods. Without a settlement, he estimated, it could be a year before the case comes to trial.

Williams, a landscaper before joining Smithfield Foods in 1994, said in his lawsuit that he was given virtually no training in how to monitor the company's wastewater system.

During his first days as a wastewater operator, the lawsuit claims, Williams was told by a supervisor how to falsify a state pollution report. State environmental inspectors rely on the integrity of such reports to determine whether a company is complying with pollution regulations.

Williams ``was constantly being encouraged to falsify information, leave critical testing undone and ignore the most basic aspects of the job,'' the lawsuit says.

During government trials this summer, Smithfield Foods employees testified that a former wastewater manager, Terry Lynn Rettig, was responsible for much of the false reporting. Rettig was fired from the company in August 1995 and is serving a 30-month prison term after he pleaded guilty in federal court to numerous environmental infractions.

But, according to Williams, such falsification occurred after Rettig left as well. The company has denied that problems persisted. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

WHISTLE BLOWER

Shannon Williams... KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT LIBEL

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