Fair Market Beef

[blackjack]

...check is on the way...how about you ABP delegates that read this site...time to help your fellow producers...

[bob-b]

yah I'm in!

[FRENCHMAN]

Count me in

[mb_rancher]

Im in too.... lets show these R-calf wanna be ranchers what were made of!

[rkaiser]

Spoke with the office manager at ABP this morning. He likes it and will run it by their leagal council, and the chairman and executive today.

Any way any of you guys can get this in front of MCBA, OCA, SSGA, or any other producer group, if it is not already there?

The way that I look at this thing is that even if Jim were to loose, our cash would be well spent simply taking a few of the bucks these a$$holes have available to fight the USDA.

[pandiana]

Yup! $20.00 is well worth a chance to make them eat their words.

[mcfarms]

I forwarded yesterdays thread to Wild Rose Ag. Producers, It's my understanding they are checking with Keystone Ag. in Manitoba on the action and the legal aspects of their participation they are somewhat concerned about organizations liabilities if counter sued, it's hopeful they will also endorse this and get their membership on board.

Personally my cheque will be mailed today. R-calf gave us what we needed them to when they ran that ad in the new york times. I'm pleased that someone has had the brains and balls to take them on, and on their own turf. Beat them at thier own game thats smart, though it's really too bad we have to sink to their level of nonsense. However attacking a problem at all angles is the best way to get something done.

Still supporting more capacity north of the 49th though,its the best long term answer.

[15444]

Just contacted Dave Stewart, executive director for OCA. First time he had heard about it and was very interested. Says he will look into it.

Also contacted all the associations on the east coast and in the process of contacting the groups in the west.

[farmers_son]

Maybe it is just lack of sleep (calving time) or a healthy suspicion that the U.S. legal system is a unlikely solution to what is and has been a politically driven border closure thinly disguised as a BSE health issue, but I am not too excited about this.

I am reminded of a similar law suit some years ago where a U.S. rancher took Oprah to court to slandering the beef industry on a program that discussed BSE after the "Oprah Winfrey Show" aired its "Dangerous Food" episode, featuring comments from vegetarian activist Howard Lyman, who believed that "Mad Cow Disease" could cause an epidemic in America bigger than AIDS.

On the show Oprah said she was "stopped cold from eating another burger." The show apparently had a devastating impact on cattle prices and sales.
On May 28, 1996, Paul F. Engler and Cactus Feeders Inc. sued Winfrey in state court on several theories, including claims under the state's food-disparagement or veggie-libel law, called the Texas False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act, and several common-law tort theories. These included business disparagement, defamation and negligence.
The case was later moved to federal court and consolidated with a separate action filed by the Texas Beef Group. The case proceeded to a jury. Before submitting the case to the jury, U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson dismissed the claims under the food-disparagement statute. The district court judge questioned the applicability of the statute to live "fed cattle."
Robinson also rejected the plaintiffs' defamation claims because they could not meet the 'of and concerning' requirement. "None of the Plaintiffs were mentioned by name on the April 16, 1996 Oprah Winfrey Show, and it is stipulated that this program did not mention by name the State of Texas, the Texas Panhandle, or West Texas," Robinson wrote in her Feb. 26, 1998, opinion.
Robinson submitted only the plaintiffs' business-disparagement claim to the jury. In February 1998, the jury rejected the plaintiffs' claim.
On appeal, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Feb. 9, 2000, in Texas Beef Group v. Winfrey, 201 F.3d 680 (5th Cir. 2000) that the lower court decision should stand.
The plaintiffs challenged the district court's dismissal of their claim under the False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act. Passed in 1995, that law provides that a person can be held liable for damages suffered by the producers of a "perishable food product" if that person "knowingly disseminates false information" to the public stating or implying that the producer's product is not safe for public consumption.
The lower court had determined that live cattle did not constitute a "perishable food product" and that, alternatively, the defendants did not knowingly disseminate false information about beef.
Federal appeals court decision
In February 2000, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled in favor of Oprah in Engler v. Winfrey. The appeals court determined that even though the "Oprah Winfrey Show" may have "melodramatized" the "Mad Cow Disease" scare, the show and its guests did not defame the beef producers.
"Exaggeration does not equal defamation, the panel wrote, citing an earlier 5th Circuit decision.
"Lyman's opinions, though strongly stated, were based on truthful, established fact, and are not actionable under the First Amendment," the court wrote. "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 plaintiffs contended that the district court judge improperly instructed the jury on the business-disparagement claim. They argued that the instruction unnecessarily required the jury to determine that false statements were made specifically regarding their cattle. They also argued that the trial judge erred by requiring the jury to find that false statements were made "of and concerning the cattle" of the plaintiffs as opposed to the more general "of and concerning beef."
However, the appeals court determined that counsel for the plaintiffs did not preserve these issues by objecting to the alleged errors when they were made.
Judge Edith H. Jones wrote a concurring opinion. While she agreed with and joined in the court's opinion with regard to the business-disparagement issue, she wrote separately because she believed that the False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act did apply to live cattle.
"The purpose of the statute's definition is to distinguish perishable from processed food products, not to eliminate protection for some of the farmers and ranchers for whom the statute was intended," Jones wrote.
Many legal experts had hoped that, particularly to the high visibility of the case and its famous defendant, the lawsuit would serve as a test case for the constitutionality of food-disparagement statutes. More than a dozen states have similar veggie-libel laws and many of them relax the burden of proof imposed on a traditional defamation plaintiff. The 5th Circuit even acknowledged this, writing:
The cattlemen's complaints regarding the 'Dangerous Food' broadcast of the Oprah Winfrey Show presented one of the first opportunities to interpret a food disparagement statute. The insufficiency of the cattlemen's evidence, however, renders unnecessary a complete inquiry into the Act's scope.
The plaintiffs petitioned for en banc review but were denied in April 2000.
See: http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/defamationandfirstamendment/Oprah.htm

I think it has been tried already. I can’t help but notice the willingness to throw good money after bad on lawyers but if Jim Murray was soliciting $20 for a feasibility study or business plan on a made in Canada solution would there be a similar response?

[plowjockey]

I am writing the cheque today! tired of this r-calf bunch of ......!

[SASH]

grass_farmer wrote:
I think it has been tried already. I can’t help but notice the willingness to throw good money after bad on lawyers but if Jim Murray was soliciting $20 for a feasibility study or business plan on a made in Canada solution would there be a similar response?

This goes back to our whole conversation on trying to get consensus in the beef industry. You have a right to disagree but for $20, I'm willing to give this a shot. I've spent $20 on worse causes than this.

[grassfarmer]

Not guilty SASH ! I do tend to agree with farmers_son on this - we expect a Montana judge to rule with Canadians that are trying to bankrupt a Montana based producers group? Still it's a low stakes gamble - count me in.

[mcfarms]

I think the key to this is it's an oppurtunity even if it doesn't succeed to weaken r-calf's fund supply. That may be the best benefit of an action such as this, besides as we saw a month ago anything can and will happen in a court case and nothing says the judge won't say I'm not giving you 7 million a day but I will give you 100 thousand, that'll add up real quick in the minds of the people behind r calf and thats not a bad thing. Hell I lost 20 bucks in productivity whilst I read and replied to this thread.

[SASH]

I apologize Grass_farmer, that should say farmers_son wrote.

[kato]

The crux of the matter is that if Canadian cattle producers sit by and let the lies be spread, then we are by default admitting that there 'may' be truth to them.

If they are allowed to keep repeating over and over that our beef is somehow unsafe, when we know it is not, then sooner or later the rhetoric becomes fixed in people's minds. They will say that if there was no response from us, then we must have something to hide.

Best thing to do is come out swinging and stick up for ourselves. No one else seems likely to do it.

Had a talk with a friend who knows Mr. Murray personally. He says he's a straight shooter, and is one of those guys who's not afraid of a fight. He also said he couldn't figure out why this hasn't been done a long time ago.

He joked that even the Montana lawyers are polarized on this one. About two thirds are R-Calf members, and the other third are firmly opposed. No one in the middle. And they all love to scrap about it.

Now if we could just get ourselves our own personal judge, like they have.......