Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 37


     
     1        McDonald's-----
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But there is no reference to it in relation
     4        to advertising?
     5
     6   MR. RAMPTON:  There does not have to be, because that is the
     7        inevitable effect of the advertising.  You get the children
     8        into the restaurants and their health is going to be
     9        destroyed as a result of that.  It does not-----
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  So, the seduction is seduction to eat the
    12        food which might give you cancer as well?
    13
    14   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, of course.  According to this, the food has
    15        all the properties which are attributed to it by the
    16        leaflet.  The least serious of which, or the most
    17        unremarkable, is that it is described as junk food,
    18        whatever that may mean, or mediocre.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL: So, the meaning I suggested should read at the
    21        end, you would say, seducing them into eating poor and
    22        possibly poisonous food which might lead to them having
    23        heart disease or cancer.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  In due course, yes, I think that is inevitable.
    26        But for my purposes it may not matter terribly much because
    27        your Lordship has already found that the meaning is that
    28        the food is very unhealthy, et cetera, and that McDonald's
    29        know it, and so it is an inescapable function of their
    30        advertising that they are getting children to eat food
    31        which is very unhealthy and which they know perfectly well
    32        is very unhealthy.  That is really one of the problems with
    33        statements of claim in libel, they do impose a certain
    34        artificiality by the meanings they plead since, in the way
    35        of lawyers, they tend to split things up.  In effect, one
    36        hardly needs a pleaded meaning for this leaflet anyway, if
    37        one just reads it as a whole most of its messages are
    38        almost literal in their defamatory message.
    39
    40        There is no question if I were a parent and I read this
    41        leaflet, and if I believed it, one of the things I would be
    42        saying is, no way am I taking my children anywhere near
    43        that place, not for any length of time anyway.
    44
    45        I just noticed, just as an afterthought.
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It would have been very easy to spell it out
    48        by saying it is at best mediocre, or is unhealthy and
    49        mediocre, or just say is unhealthy.
    50 
    51   MR. RAMPTON:  Unhealthy or very unhealthy, and may give them 
    52        food poisoning. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But it does not actually say that?
    55
    56   MR. RAMPTON:  No, it does not have to because you only get to
    57        the children bit after you have read the unhealthy food bit
    58        anyway.
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I understand your argument.

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