Day 186 - 10 Nov 95 - Page 02
1 Friday, 10th November, 1995
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, before the Defendants respond to my
4 submissions on nutrition, meaning of the word, can I just
5 clear up, I do not know whether I call it a
6 misunderstanding, but a reference your Lordship made to my
7 words in opening "schoolboy howler". Does your Lordship
8 remember that?
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I did. I mean, when I read the
11 transcript, you had, in fact, dealt with it on the
12 afternoon of your submissions.
13
14 MR. RAMPTON: I do not intend to do any more than give
15 your Lordship the reference in the opening.
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I looked it up, but I would be grateful
18 for the reference.
19
20 MR. RAMPTON: It is the second or the first day of the trial
21 proper, which is 28th June 1994, page 36, at line 27 down
22 to the second line on page 37, where I was dealing with
23 what my experts would say about the Defendants' case on
24 nutrition.
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will reread that. While you are on your
27 feet, an additional principle, in relation to meaning, to
28 the ones which you have canvassed which might be relevant
29 to this matter or any other issues as to meaning in other
30 parts of the leaflet is one which you have already
31 mentioned in the past; that is, the proposition that words
32 may bear a defamatory meaning giving rise to a cause of
33 action, even though the ordinary reasonable reader would
34 not believe that meaning.
35
36 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord. That may be so. Put it this way,
37 if a defendant were able to satisfy the court that nobody,
38 no reasonable person, who read the leaflet would have
39 believed what was said, whatever its literal meaning, then
40 it may be doubtful whether there is a cause of action at
41 all. If the case is merely that there may have been some
42 people who did not believe what was written, then that
43 could only reflect the measure of damages.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I , in fact, got it from paragraph 4.09
46 in Duncan and Neill which -----
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: I ought to know this.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It refers to speeches of Lord Reid and
51 Lord Morris in the Morgan case.
52
53 MR. MORRIS: What page is that, sorry?
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is paragraph 4.09 on page 12 of Duncan and
56 Neill.
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord. That reflects something that Lord
59 Goddard, I think it was, when he was Lord Chief Justice,
60 said in Hough v. Express Newspapers, as far as I recall
