Amarillo, TX - Attorneys for television star Oprah Winfrey rested their case and asked the judge to dismiss a lawsuit by Texas cattlemen who say her 1996 show on mad cow disease caused livestock prices to plummet.
U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson did not rule on the motion and instead pushed ahead with preparations for closing arguments on Wednesday.
After the defense rested, Robinson allowed brief rebuttal testimony by the plaintiffs, then sent the jury home for the day. She ordered them to return on Wednesday morning for arguments and final instructions.
The defense rested after just four days of testimony in the trial, now in its sixth week. In their motion to dismiss, the attorneys said the plaintiffs had not proved their case.
The cattlemen charge that Winfrey's talk show misled viewers into thinking that U.S. beef could be infected with mad cow disease. Prices fell 10% a day after the show aired and the cattlemen say they lost $10 million.
But Winfrey's attorneys said in their motion that comments on the show were "substantially true" and there was "no clear and convincing evidence of actual malice" on the part of Winfrey or program guest and fellow defendant Howard Lyman, a vegetarian activist.
Lyman said on the show that cattle were being fed ground up cattle parts, which could lead to the spread of mad cow disease. He said a resulting epidemic would "make AIDS look like the common cold."
Winfrey, one of the United States' best-known TV personalities, responded by swearing never to eat another hamburger.
Robinson crippled the plaintiffs' case last week when she threw out key elements of the suit and said it could not be tried under "veggie libel" laws that prohibit the false disparagement of agricultural products.
Her rulings forced the cattlemen to prove that the popular star acted maliciously toward the beef industry.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, has been blamed in the deaths of at least 20 people in Britain. The U.S. government says it does not exist in the United States.
Winfrey has been in the courtroom from the beginning of the trial and testified earlier. She has been taping her popular show in Amarillo, instead of her normal base in Chicago.
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