McLibel is a true tale of once upon a time, not so very long ago (1990 - 1997) when the Davids took on a Goliath (Ronald McDonald and his Big Bad Corporation) in not-so-Merry-Old England. Two unemployed activists had distributed leaflets, (which they neither wrote nor produced,) that had the audacity to criticize the corporate giant. The two, who were unable to afford attorneys, were put to a Kafka-esque Kangaroo (with apologies to residents of Australia) Court trial, the likes of which, were it to appear on Saturday Night Live, would be condemned as Theatre of the Absurd.
The author describes the protracted trial: "Like the interminable case of _Jarndyce v. Jarndyce_ in Charles Dickens' *Bleak House,* _McDonald's Corporation and McDonald's Restaurants Ltd. vs. Helen Marie Steel and David Morris_ (popularly known as the McLibel case) drone(d) on in claustrophobic isolation."
One of the most striking things about McLibel, to the American sensibility, is the arcane, archaic, bizarre, Byzantine Quagmire of British libel law. The book is sometimes difficult to digest. There are no footnotes, endnotes, annotations, or other direct attribution of sources. I was disappointed that the Writ and other pleadings (actual legal papers which are the foundation of a lawsuit,) were not included in the Appendix. A reproduction of the offending leaflet would also have been helpful. The author, British "Environmental Journalist" John Vidal (Hey! Is he related to Gore Vidal?) frequently plagues the reader with his own protracted political polemics. But it is, nonetheless, enriched food for thought.
Do you want fries with that? Here's an interesting bit of trivia included in the book: Ray Kroc, founding force behind McDonald's as we know it, was in the same World War I ambulance driving company as Walt Disney.
It was at this point that McDonalds made a serious legal error in making some allegations against the enviromentalists. This led to a counter suite for defamation which was run at the same time. The problem for McDonalds was that they had to lead evidence to prove their case. Normally in a defamation case it would be up to the defendant to do so. As the two enviromentalists were both broke they would not have been able to do so. However McDonalds by their tactical mistake forced themselves to provide evidence to back up their claims. The two enviromentalists were able to cross examine the various McDonalds witnesses to provide evidence for their claims.
As a result the case went on for so long that it became Britain's longest ever case. The two enviromentalists had a year to learn how to cross examine and were able to elicit some evidence that was unflattering McDonalds.
In these sorts of cases costs of litigation are nominally recoverable from the losing side. However as the two enviromentalists had no money any cost order against them was without value. This led to a incredibly long and expensive case which ended up bleeding McDonalds with the unfortunate side effect that the two enviromentalists were able to milk it for all it was worth to attack the reputation of McDonalds. From the point of view of the firm a total disaster... The decision to litigate had been a disaster.
The book is okay but leaden at times, the film that was released of the event is probably a bit more interesing.