McDonald - The Arthur Page Society

the European Court of Human Rights to defend the public’s right to criticize corporations
and won. In a recent update, on February 2, 2005 the Guardian newspaper described the
victory in the following way:
It was the greatest legal victory against corporate power in living memory. Last
week, two penniless activists, Dave Morris and Helen Steel, persuaded the
European court of human rights that Britain's libel laws, under which they had
been sued by McDonald's, had denied them their right of free speech. The law
will probably have to be changed, depriving the rich and powerful of their most
effective means of stifling public protest. So why aren't they hopping mad? The
company that sued Dave and Helen will say only that "the world has moved on ...
and so has McDonald's". 78
In 1999, the Court of Appeals ruled that it was true that eating enough
McDonald’s food could contribute to a diet high in fat, which carries with it the risk of
heart disease. Again, the press picked up the story. Associated Press reported:
A pair of vegetarian activists won a partial victory Wednesday in their struggle to
overturn a court decision that they libeled McDonald's Corp. by accusing it of
selling food that can cause heart disease. Three Court of Appeal judges ruled that
Dave Morris and Helen Steel were justified in claiming that regular customers of
the hamburger chain face a heightened risk of heart trouble. 79
Five long years after an amateurish pamphlet precipitated a long and bloody court
battle that built the media’s agenda on issues unfavorable to McDonald’s, spurred
development of the McSpotlight web site where the original pamphlet was reproduced
and easily distributed to a worldwide audience, and provided the material for a feature
length documentary released in 2005, McLibel, Steel and Morris’s message continued.
3.3 McLawsuit
In 2002 and 2003, a group of obese teenagers filed suit in a series of court cases
against McDonald’s, alleging that the fast food giant had caused their weight problems. 80
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