McDonalds law suit

McDonald's seems to have made a mistake in suing two unemployed activists, Dave Morris and Helen Steel, who unlike others McDonald's have threatened were willing to fight the case. It seems to be the first time that the McDonald's has actually gone to court in the UK after making such threats. McDonald's has forced apologies from a number of media outlets including Britain's BBC and major newspapers such as the Guardian, Channel 4 for broadcasting a Germany documentary "Jungleburger' in 1990 and the Nightline programme in New Zealand. McDonald's has also sent solicitors letters to the Vegetarian Society of the UK about their publication Greenscene, the publishers of a Polish primary school handbook, to publishers of a UK Home Ecology handbook, all of which linked McDonald's to rainforest destruction and in other ways criticised McDonald's. Morris argues that a climate of fear had been created and the word had gone out that if you said anything against McDonald's you would get a writ.

Morris and Steel are members of London Greenpeace, an anarchist group not affiliated to Greenpeace International, and were distributing pamphlets entitled "What's Wrong With McDonald's." The pamphlets claimed that McDonald's sold food that was unhealthy, exploited its workers, promoted rainforest distruction through cattle ranching, added to the litter problem and targeted advertisements at children. They were sued for libel and in Britain legal aid is not available for libel cases so they represented themselves against McDonald's top lawyers. Even before the case went to trial in 1994, there had been several years of pre-trial hearings. It became the longest trial in UK history.

McDonald's claims that it is taking the action to establish the truth. Prior to the case McDonald's infiltrated the meetings of London Greenpeace to gather evidence against them and the private investigators who did this later gave evidence at the trial. McDonald's has also been successful in petitioning the judge not to have a jury for this case, arguing that the issues were too complex for a jury to understand.

British libel laws clearly favour those who bring suit. To win the case, under British libel laws, Morris and Steel had to prove that every statement in the pamphlet was true rather than McDonald's having to prove that it was untrue (as would be the case in the US). Nor does a corporation such as McDonald's have to prove that its reputation was damaged by the libel or sales were harmed. Keir Starmer, a lawyer who has given free advice to Morris and Steel argues:

The problem with the law as it is now is for libel is that its not a battle for the truth in court, it's a battle of the purse. If you have the money you can hire a good legal team. If you have no money you can't hire a legal team and you run huge risks because if you lose you could pay the costs of the person that's suing you. Now that is a huge incentive by those that can afford to pay lawyers to suppress information and opinions of those they know can't.

Morris and Steel were supported by an international "McLibel Support Campaign" which raised money to help with costs. They called over 100 witnesses to give evidence against McDonald's practices and products. They also sued McDonald's in what is termed a SLAPP-back (also sometimes used by US targets of SLAPP suits), for distributing leaflets calling them liars.

When the trial ended after two and a half years, in February 1997, it had cost about £10 million and generated 40,000 pages of documents and 20,000 pages of transcripts of testimony. Morris and Steel felt they had won, although the Judge's verdict was yet to be heard, because McDonald's practices were put on trial and because they had defeated McDonald's efforts to silence its critics. The pamphlet had been distributed to an estimated 2 million people since the trial began and an internet site established with much more information about McDonalds and its practices and accessed by people from all over the world.

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McLibel website - McSpotlight

Anon., 'McDonald's Censorship Strategy', (McSpotlight, 1996)

John Vidal, 'Welcome to McHell', The Big Issue (24 February 1997) .

Anon., 'McLibel', Chain Reaction, Vol. 72 (1994)

Background Briefing, Radio 2RN, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 30/4/95.

Keir Starmer, 'Kier Starmer on the trial, the judge and Dave and Helen's legal career', (McSpotlight: World Wide Web, 1997)

Sarah Lyall, 'Britain's Big 'McLibel Trial' (It's McEndless, Too)', New York Times (28 November 1996)

Carol Midgley, 'Trial That's Made A Meal of It', The Times (13 December 1996)

Daniel Zoll, 'Big Mac Attack: A British trial puts McDonald's on the grill', San Francisco Guardian (29 January 1997)

McDonald's other lawsuits

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