Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 35


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  It is on malice, my Lord.  That is all.
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Very well.
     4
     5   MR. RAMPTON:  I have said all I have to say about publication.
     6
     7   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What is the position on malice -- I think the
     8        answer is fairly obvious, but I will ask you anyway -- if
     9        the Defendants' motives are about equal measures of belief
    10        in most, at least, of the allegations in the leaflet, on
    11        the one hand, and a wish to smash McDonald's, on the
    12        other?
    13
    14   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, that begs such a huge question, I am not
    15        sure how to answer that.  The wish to smash McDonald's has
    16        to be the dominant motive.  Equal measures is not a concept
    17        which I have ever actually -- it could be, on the facts,
    18        I suppose.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Does it really boil down to this: I have got
    21        to think that any other motive is really of no real
    22        significance?
    23
    24   MR. RAMPTON:  It may be of significance because, as Lord Diplock
    25        said in Horrocks v. Lowe the motives with which people act
    26        are mixed, and there may well -- this is a little example
    27        I gave about the man who comments on the performance of the
    28        company -- one may well invite a strongly held view that
    29        the managing director is incompetent, but it would be quite
    30        clear from that example that one's dominant motive --
    31        though one is anxious to express one honest opinion, that
    32        was not the dominant motive for the publication.
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:  There may be well be some areas of the case --
    37        Ms. Steel's beliefs about animals will certainly be one of
    38        them, I should have thought; and, although Mr. Morris has
    39        not given evidence, your Lordship might think, having
    40        observed him and the way he conducted himself in court and
    41        so on, your Lordship might infer, although it is not,
    42        strictly speaking, evidence in the sense that it has been
    43        given from the witness box -- nevertheless, as
    44        your Lordship once said in the course of this case, you
    45        have eyes and ears -- that Mr. Morris was particularly
    46        passionate about some areas of employment, for example.
    47
    48   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
    49
    50   MR. RAMPTON:  The real question to which all of this material in 
    51        malice leads back is, at the times of publication between 
    52        September 1987 and the end of 1989 in particular -- though, 
    53        to some extent, thereafter -- were the Defendants, if they
    54        published this material or caused it to be published,
    55        primarily seeking to express what they believed to be true
    56        about McDonald's, or were they primarily concerned to smash
    57        McDonald's because it represented that most hated class,
    58        American multi-nationals ---
    59
    60   MS. STEEL:   There is absolutely no evidence of that at all.

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