Day 186 - 10 Nov 95 - Page 45


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What are you looking for now?
     3
     4   MR. MORRIS:  I am waiting for the go ahead to carry on.
     5
     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.
     9
    10        In fact, Mr. Rampton, am I to have the advantage of a
    11        transcript of today's argument as well?
    12
    13   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, certainly -- and the Defendants, as well.
    14
    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'.
    18
    19   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, of course.
    20
    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:
    24
    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."
    28
    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.
    36
    37        The next one I would like to go to would be tab 3,
    38        Jones v. Skelton, page 1370.
    39
    40   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    41
    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:
    45
    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." 
    51 
    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:
    55
    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."
    60

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