Day 186 - 10 Nov 95 - Page 45
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What are you looking for now?
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4 MR. MORRIS: I am waiting for the go ahead to carry on.
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6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You keep going, while we are on the law. It
7 is only when you are making arguments that I wanted to take
8 a note.
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10 In fact, Mr. Rampton, am I to have the advantage of a
11 transcript of today's argument as well?
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13 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, certainly -- and the Defendants, as well.
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15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It seems to me only fair that if I have a
16 transcript of your argument, I should have one of the
17 Defendants'.
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19 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, of course.
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21 MR. MORRIS: The next one is tab 2 which is Lewis v. Daily
22 Telegraph, page 258, House of Lords, just the middle of the
23 first paragraph, first of all, about:
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25 "....the reasonable person can and does read
26 between the lines in the light of their general
27 knowledge and experience of worldly affairs."
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29 I would like to say that "general knowledge and experience
30 of worldly affairs" would include, nowadays, an awareness
31 of diet, links between diet and ill health, and that the
32 person is not, as Mr. Rampton would describe, a complete
33 ignoramus who rushes us home and tells his wife that she is
34 going to drop dead if she eats McDonald's food. That would
35 be an extremely unreasonable person.
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37 The next one I would like to go to would be tab 3,
38 Jones v. Skelton, page 1370.
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40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
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42 MR. MORRIS: Just the last full -- well, the last paragraph,
43 starting, "It is well settled". I need a little bit of
44 help on the interpretation of this, but this is about:
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46 "....whether the words are capable of conveying
47 a defamatory meaning the court will reject those
48 meanings which can only emerge as the product of
49 some strained or forced or utterly unreasonable
50 interpretation."
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52 We would say that it is unreasonable to interpret the words
53 the way the Plaintiffs are trying to interpret them.
54 Additionally, three lines down below that:
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56 "....the circumstances in which the writing was
57 published, reasonable men, to whom the
58 publication was made, would be likely to
59 understand it in a libellous sense."
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