Day 077 - 25 Jan 95 - Page 04

     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Shall I read that?
     2
     3   MR. RAMPTON:  Might I ask your Lordship to read it first?
     4
     5   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  Yes?
     6
     7   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, the reason why I make this submission
     8        now, if your Lordship will hear me now, is obvious.
     9        Mr. Walker is about to start his evidence.  It is probable,
    10        to say the least, that the Defendants would wish to ask him
    11        some questions about the issue dealt with by Dr. Dealer.
    12        If, as I submit, the issue dealt with by Dr. Dealer, if
    13        I have understood it correctly, is and should not be any
    14        part of this case, then the Defendants would not be
    15        entitled to ask Mr. Walker or any other witness any
    16        questions about the matter.
    17
    18        My Lord, there are two strands to my submission and I will
    19        summarise them.  First, that the question of BSE must be
    20        fairly referable to some defamatory statement about
         McDonald's contained in, expressly or by implication, the
    22        words complained of in this action.
    23
    24        The second strand to this submission is one which, now that
    25        your Lordship has seen Dr. Dealer's report, will not come
    26        as a surprise and one with which your Lordship is familiar
    27        from a previous occasion and accepted, is that a plea of
    28        "justification" -- I put that word in inverted commas --
    29        to a meaning of the words complained of, even if that
    30        meaning is to be found in the word which is not defamatory
    31        of the Plaintiff, is irrelevant and embarrassing and will
    32        not be allowed.
    33
    34        My Lord, may I develop the first of those strands by
    35        reference to the leaflet itself?  I know your Lordship has
    36        it engraved now, if not in your Lordship's heart, at any
    37        rate on your mental retina, but it is perhaps helpful to
    38        look at it yet again for this purpose.  I draw attention
    39        first, naturally enough, to the headings.  The only two
    40        headings which could bear upon this question are
         "McDisease" -- "McCancer" is specific and, therefore,
    42        necessarily excludes any consideration of BSE -- and
    43        "McDeadly".
    44        The other part of the leaflet which could bear upon it, in
    45        a general sense, is the cartoon:  "If the slaughterhouse
    46        does not get you, the junk food will" with the cow and
    47        person conjoined in a bun.
    48
    49        But, My Lord, those headings and that cartoon cannot, in
    50        our submission, be used as, as it were, talisman for any 
    51        allegation that the Defendants feel that they would like to 
    52        make against McDonald's food.  They, as I have submitted on 
    53        a previous occasion in a different context, must be read in
    54        the context of the leaflet as a whole.
    55
    56        My Lord, it is our submission that the context of
    57        "McDisease", "McDeadly" and the cartoon means that they
    58        speak of either cancer or heart disease or constipation or
    59        food poisoning.  That is in the box on the penultimate
    60        page:  "What's your poison?" where it says:  "Meat is