Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 27
1 to take the words literally and say: "Well, if you have not
2 proved that I stole the axe on Tuesday and you can only
3 prove that I did it on Wednesday, you fail."
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: So, if you can say, "Well, it is very nearly
6 true and the criticism is well made", then that is enough.
7
8 MR. RAMPTON: That is enough. It is, at any rate, enough to
9 deprive the Plaintiffs from getting much damages, if it
10 were true.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. No complaint is actually made in either
13 of the meanings in the Statement of Claim of a defamatory
14 meaning from the reference to antibiotics, growth promoting
15 hormone drugs or pesticide residues.
16
17 MR. RAMPTON: No, it is not.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is that because, as one might understand,
20 McDonald's believe the allegations of the risk from food
21 poisoning, or of food poisoning, is of more potential
22 danger to their reputation?
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. I mean, I do not know the answer to that
25 question because I was not in the case in those days, but
26 I suspect that what has happened is that the thing which
27 strikes at McDonald's business is the allegation that there
28 is a serious risk of food poisoning in their restaurants.
29 Most ordinary readers, one guesses, would say to
30 themselves: "OK, the farmers may be using various things
31 they did not ought to be using, but that is hardly
32 McDonald's fault anyway." It may not even be a defamatory
33 allegation, so far as McDonald's are concerned, whereas the
34 food poisoning quite plainly is.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But they are valid considerations ---
37
38 MR. RAMPTON: In what sense, my Lord?
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- are they not, in considering
41 justification?
42
43 MR. RAMPTON: I am rather doubtful whether they are, because a
44 justification has to be aimed at a defamatory meaning, and
45 a defamatory meaning which the Plaintiff complains of, so
46 long always as it is a distinct and severable charge.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is the point I have in mind.
49
50 MR. RAMPTON: I realise that. But it might be thought --
51 I would submit that it probably should be thought -- that
52 an allegation that McDonald's sell meat products into which
53 the farmers who supply them have injected excessive
54 quantities -- not even excessive quantities, quantities --
55 sufficient to result in residues in the food was not really
56 McDonald's fault at all.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, can I put, though, the same question to
59 you as I did with regard to chicken? If the Defendants
60 proved a serious risk from antibiotics, growth promoting
