Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 27


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Treated all their employees badly?
     2
     3   MR. RAMPTON:   Deliberately mistreating all their employees,
     4        then what is said about the animals or the advertising may
     5        not matter.  That is the nature of a section 5 defence.
     6
     7        But in relation to the single charge about the rainforest,
     8        if it is a single charge, whatever the detail may be which
     9        goes to make that single charge, the single sting, whatever
    10        the evidence might be offered by way of justification
    11        cannot found a defence under section 5.
    12
    13        My Lord, the authority for all that is a case called Polly
    14        Peck.  I think it is The Times, isn't it?  It might have
    15        been The Observer.  In 1985.  Anyway, that is in 1986
    16        Queen's Bench.  I can't remember the page number.
    17
    18        My Lord, if there is at any time any point at which I do
    19        not feel myself it is appropriate for me to jump up --
    20
    21   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think that is the way I was looking at it.
    22        Where I fell into error was mentioning section 5 at all.
    23
    24   MR. RAMPTON:   Exactly.
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   If there is a general charge and then a
    27        variety of specifics, the general charge and the specifics
    28        all being defamatory in themselves, one looks at which, if
    29        any, of the specifics have been justified.  This is leaving
    30        any question of comment on one side.  One looks at which of
    31        the specifics, if any, have been justified and then asks
    32        whether they substantially justify the general sting.
    33
    34   MR. RAMPTON:   That is right.
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Section 5 does not come into that.  But, by
    37        the same token, if there is a general sting and five
    38        specifics, only one of which is justified, but it is the
    39        worst by far of the lot, then that might still
    40        substantially justify the general sting.  One does not just
    41        count heads.
    42
    43   MR. RAMPTON:   Let me be absolutely frank about this.  I was
    44        going to say this anyway when it got to my turn.  If one
    45        looks at that rainforest column, if it were true that
    46        McDonald's was destroying vast areas of Central American
    47        rainforest to create grazing pastures for cattle, then it
    48        might not matter that they were not also doing it to make
    49        pet food or to send the cattle back as burgers or even to
    50        provide fast food packaging materials.  That is actually 
    51        probably a separate charge in relation to the use of 
    52        trees. 
    53
    54        And then one would say to oneself, what is the real sting
    55        of that passage so far as the rainforest is concerned, and
    56        one probably concludes it is the allegation that McDonald's
    57        are destroying vast areas of rainforest.  Then probably the
    58        purpose of the meanings do not matter.
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  One might have distinct and severable general

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