000220 Oprah's Win Over Cattlemen Upheld

New ORLEANS - A federal appeals court said Wednesday that Oprah Winfrey “melodramatized” the mad cow disease scare but did not give false information about it or defame cattle producers.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a verdict two years ago by a federal jury that rejected cattlemen's claims against the talk show host, her production company and vegetarian activist Howard Lyman.

The judge at the trial had ruled that the case could not be heard under Texas' “veggie libel” law, and was instead a conventional business defamation case. That meant the cattlemen had to show that Winfrey or her show deliberately or recklessly made false statements which hurt their business.

The appeals court refused to rule on the scope of the “veggie libel” law, which was designed to protect food products from false disparagement. However, one of the appeals judges, Edith H. Jones, wrote that she believes cattle are covered by the law.

She said the law specifically covers aquaculture, and “an act designed to protect ... a relatively new Texas industry could not have meant to exclude cattle raising, which is intimately bound with Texas' history and current economy.”

The ruling affirms people's right to speak their opinions and reaffirms that “editing is what editors are for, and not for judges or the legal system,” said Charles L. Babcock, Winfrey's attorney.

Kevin Isern, the attorney for a feed lot that sued Winfrey, Cactus Feeders Inc., and its owner, Paul Engler, said they had not decided whether to appeal.

On the show's April 16, 1996, episode, Lyman said including processed cattle in cattle feed - a practice later banned - could spread mad cow disease to people in the United States. The brain-destroying disease has never been found in cattle in the United States but is suspected of killing 23 people in Britain.

Winfrey at one point said the information “just stopped me cold from eating another burger!”

Cattle prices and cattle futures dropped drastically after the show aired.

The appeals court said that Lyman's claims, which Winfrey described during the show as exaggerated, were based on facts and therefore could not be challenged under business disparagement law.

“Stripped to its essentials, the cattlemen's complaint is that the `Dangerous Food' show did not present the mad cow issue in the light most favorable to United States beef,” the court said. “This argument cannot stand.”

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