Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 51
1 in sugar and sodium content with the aim of people
2 developing an addiction for it". I mean, this is not
3 careful drafting, but you see what I am suggesting.
4
5 MR. RAMPTON: I can see that.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That might clearly be thought to be
8 defamatory.
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: I can see that, my Lord, but that is only if one
11 separates it from the rest of the context. The passage
12 starts with "paying for the habit", and it has embedded in
13 it the words "fake food" and it is under a headline
14 "McProfits" and a whole lot of other stuff which is all
15 directed, including the front cover of the leaflet itself,
16 to the conclusion that McDonald's cynically exploit the
17 world in which they operate because they are only
18 interested in making money out of it. So, at the very
19 least, this passage fuels the suggestion that McDonald's
20 are careless of their customers' health.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I have made is that H is really an
23 allegation of a defamatory meaning of exploitation of
24 customers for profit and carelessness as to their good
25 health.
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: I have to say, and I have not always agreed with
28 the way these meanings have been put, but I have to say in
29 defence of the pleader that that is how I read it when
30 I read it. I thought that was what was alleged - it was an
31 allegation of what one might call cynical exploitation for
32 the sake of profit.
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I felt I ought to mention G and H
35 because I think everyone has been concentrating on F, but
36 they are there and pleaded so one needs to know ----
37
38 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, that is certainly right, and in the end
39 -- and I must say if this was a jury case, I know it is
40 not, but if it were a jury case one would be thinking and
41 probably saying that the precise shade of each of the
42 pleaded meanings probably does not matter a row of beans,
43 because what matters at the end of it is the impression
44 which the jury has in its mind of what this leaflet is
45 telling the world about McDonald's. Now, of course, they
46 are separate topics and the jury would have to make a
47 separate decision as to the meaning on each part of the
48 leaflet, though it would use the whole context, the whole
49 of the leaflet, in order to arrive at that decision for
50 each part.
51
52 But what it would not do, and I would not invite it to do
53 and I doubt the judge would in a jury trial, is to go
54 through the meanings line by line and ask them to ask
55 themselves whether it means precisely this or that. If the
56 jury, in their deliberations, translated H into the sort of
57 form which your Lordship has just written down, then that
58 would be completely unobjectionable. They are, after all,
59 the masters of meaning and the case does ----
60
