In a lawsuit about sewage sludge safety, a federal judge denied a motion for default judgment against the University’s Research Foundation and University scientists.

Two farming families and David Lewis, an adjunct senior research scientist in the School of Ecology, sought an end to the suit because someone released a settlement demand to the media, according to court documents.

The settlement demand, addressed from the dairy farmers’ lawyer to the University defendants’ lawyers, offered to close the suit and praise the University in a U.S. Senate hearing on the suit.

The families were summoned to appear before the Senate to give testimony “related to their allegations in this litigation that would besmirch the reputation of the University of Georgia,” according to court documents.

“Feeling allegiance to his alma mater,” an attorney of the dairy farmers convinced them to make a settlement demand to “avoid the glare of the political spotlight associated with being a target at a Senate committee hearing.”

But the settlement demand hinged on University scientists admitting they faked data and would pay damages the sludge contamination caused the dairy farmers.

The lawsuit, filed in 2006, said University scientists, who investigated sewage sludge processed by a wastewater treatment plant in Augusta, fabricated data from their research and said livestock would not be harmed by the sludge. Farmers R.A. McElmurray III and G. William Boyce said the sludge, which was used as fertilizer on the farm, contained “hazardous chemical wastes” and killed their cattle.

The University could be ordered to return EPA grants of more than $1 million and pay financial penalties if Lewis’ claims stand up in federal court.

District Judge Clay Land rejected the default judgment Friday as a “drastic measure” because the lawyers “strain to craft an argument” that the publicity from leaked information was “so contemptible that it deserves the most severe sanction.”

Land said the idea they couldn’t get a fair trial due to publicity is “exagurated and approaches the preposterous” because similar jury issues are resolved “every day in courtrooms throughout the country.”

“Plainly put, if a party truly deserves the equivalent of the litigation death penalty, it should not be so hard to make the case,” he wrote.