Opinion ID: 767372
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: 2 In early 1996, a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) was diagnosed in Britain. CJD, a form of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy, is a fatal disease that affects the human brain. On March 20, 1996, the British Ministry of Health announced that scientists had linked the consumption of beef infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) with this new CJD variant. BSE, or Mad Cow Disease, had been detected in British cattle as early as 1986. 1 Also a form of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy, BSE triggers a deadly, degenerative brain condition in cattle. BSE is most likely to arise when cattle are fed contaminated ruminant-derived protein supplements, which are made from rendered cattle and sheep. 3 The postulated link between the consumption of beef and CJD caused panic in Britain. News media in the United States ran numerous stories on the subject. Articles appeared in, inter alia, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. Dateline, a popular, prime time television news program, broadcast a report on the subject. See Texas Beef Group v. Winfrey, 11 F. Supp. 2d 858, 861 (N.D. Tex. 1998). Another report, and the subject of this suit, was aired on the Dangerous Food broadcast of the Oprah Winfrey Show. 4 Asserting that the beef market suffered substantial losses following the broadcast, several Texas cattle ranchers sued Oprah Winfrey, the producers and distributors of the Oprah Winfrey Show, and Howard Lyman, a guest on the show, in Texas state court. The cattlemen alleged violations of the Texas False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. 96.001-.004 (the Act), and damages arising from the common-law torts of business disparagement, defamation, negligence, and negligence per se. The cattlemen's suit was removed to federal court. At the close of the cattlemen's case-in-chief, the district court culled the majority of the pending claims, saving only the business disparagement cause of action. This claim was rejected by the jury, and the cattlemen have appealed. Although we differ with the district court's reasoning on certain issues, we affirm.