Jury rules in Oprah's favor in cattlemen's lawsuit

Jet, March 16, 1998

An Amarillo, TX, jury recently rejected a lawsuit by Texas cattlemen who claimed Oprah Winfrey's televised comments about "mad cow" disease caused the beef market to plummet, which cost them millions of dollars.

Winfrey, moved with emotion, put her hands over her face and appeared to weep. Then she hugged and shook hands with her attorneys. She said later, "Free speech not only lives, it rocks!"

The cattlemen sued for more than $11 million over an April 16, 1996, broadcast of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that they said gave the false impression that American beef could spread mad cow disease to people. On the show, Winfrey said she was "stopped cold" from eating another burger after hearing comments by her guest, vegetarian activist Howard Lyman, who said U.S. cattle were being fed ground-up cow parts in cattle feed--a practice outlawed in the United States last summer--which could spread mad cow disease.

The jury, who reached a verdict in about six hours of deliberations over two days, decided the cattlemen didn't prove the show falsely disparaged them.

Also exonerated were Winfrey's production company and Lyman.

Plaintiffs' attorney Joe Coyne said his clients will appeal.

Charles Babcock, Winfrey's attorney and one of the nation's premier 1st Amendment specialists, said the trial was a "significant test of free speech and a significant test of the talk show format."

This is Winfrey's second victory in the beef defamation trial. Earlier a federal judge threw out part of the case filed under Texas' food defamation law-the "veggie libel" law--which forbids false disparagement of agricultural products (JET, March 9).