Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 21


     
     1        because the point is it is McDonald's who are the
     2        plaintiffs and all we are concerned about is things which
     3        are defamatory of them.
     4
     5   MR. MORRIS:   Right.
     6
     7   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   It may be that an allegation is made about
     8        multi-nationals generally, but that must, must it not, be
     9        deemed to include McDonald's, but you tell me if it is
    10        not.
    11
    12   MR. MORRIS:   Well, the thing is, the plaintiffs cannot have it
    13        both ways.  Either they are saying this must mean, you
    14        know, that the cartoon must relate to McDonald's food,
    15        because it is in the pamphlet about McDonald's, in which
    16        case therefore every line must relate to McDonald's by that
    17        argument, which is a bit absurd.  So if there is anything
    18        that is defamatory or a bad thing that is mentioned in the
    19        pamphlet that McDonald's have not complained about, then we
    20        should be able to pray it in aid that well, if McDonald's
    21        view is held that if it is in the pamphlet it must be an
    22        attack on McDonald's, so ----
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I see nothing odd about that.  I mean, it
    25        seems to me at the moment that everything in this pamphlet
    26        does not relate to McDonald's.  It may relate to Burger
    27        King and Kentucky Fried Chicken or multi-nationals
    28        generally as well, if one looks at any specific allegation,
    29        but it all relates to McDonald's, and therefore if there is
    30        a defamatory charge in the section of the leaflet which
    31        McDonald's have not pleaded but which you say is there and
    32        which you have justified on the evidence, then you owe it
    33        to yourself to point it out.  Do not bother to point out
    34        any defamatory meanings which you have not justified
    35        because that will be counter productive.
    36
    37   MR. MORRIS:   Obviously we have not tried to justify any
    38        meanings that were not identified by the plaintiffs as
    39        defamatory generally.  A lot of them are common sense or
    40        just are public knowledge.  But I will identify them.  And
    41        whether we can justify them is another question.
    42
    43        In the "fifty acres every minute" box, it talks about the
    44        effects of deforestation and the relationship between
    45        deforestation and hunger, and it talks about rainforest,
    46        one billion people depending on water flowing from these
    47        forests.
    48
    49        If I can just say, on the terms of meaning, it is clear
    50        that the word rainforest is used in this pamphlet to 
    51        describe all tropical forests.  It is inconceivable that 
    52        one billion people are depending on water from only one 
    53        small section of tropical forests.
    54
    55        It then talks about hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan.  Ethiopia
    56        is a reference to the band aid earlier on, we presume, that
    57        was trying to raise food for people that were starving in
    58        Ethiopia.  Then it talks about, in the next sentence:  In
    59        Amazonia, torrential rain sweeps down the treeless valleys,
    60        eroding the land and washing away the soil.  So soil

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