Oprah Two, Cattlemen Zero

Talk show host Oprah Winfrey won the second round of her legal battle with Texas cattlemen Wednesday.

A federal appeals court ruled to uphold the 1998 court decision that said Winfrey did not illegally disparage the cattle industry when she said she "stopped cold from eating another burger" after hearing about mad cow disease.

A group of Texas cattlemen brought the suit when cattle prices plummeted following a 1996 show on which Winfrey discussed mad cow disease, a brain disorder in cattle

5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edith H. Jones upheld the federal jury that rejected cattlemen's claims against Winfrey, her production company and vegetarian activist Harold Lyman, upheld that decision.

Jones wrote that while the April 16, 1996 edition of Oprah "melodramatized" the mad cow disease scare, it did not give false information about it or defame cattle producers, a federal appeals court ruled today.

But Jones did not validate the entire 1998 decision, which had ruled that cattlemen could not use Texas' "veggie law," a measure to protect food products from disparagement. The judge in the 1998 case, District Judge Mary Lou Robinson, ruled that cattlemen had to sue Oprah under standard business disparagement law.

That meant the cattlemen had to demonstrate that Winfrey or her show deliberately or recklessly made false statements which hurt their business. And although cattle prices and cattle futures dropped to a 10-year low after the April 16, 1996, show, cattlemen did not challenge Winfrey's statement that she was "stopped cold from eating another burger."

Wednesday, Jones disagreed with this part of Robinson's 1998 ruling. Jones wrote that she believed that the veggie law should cover cattle. She said the law specifically covers aquaculture and "an act designed to protect ... a relatively new Texas industry could not have meant to exclude cattle raising, which is intimately bound with Texas' history and current economy."

But Jones ruled the cattlemen's case was still invalid, because the 1996 program didn't give false information about mad cow disease or defame cattle producers.

"Stripped to its essentials, the cattlemen's complain is that the 'Dangerous Food' show did not present the Mad Cow issue in the light most favorable to United States beef," the court said. "This argument cannot stand."

"When Ms. Winfrey speaks, America listens. But her statement is neither actionable nor claimed to be so," the ruling said.

It said that Lyman's claims, which Winfrey described during the show as exaggerated, were based on facts and therefore could not be challenged under business disparagement law.

Since Jones agreed with the ultimate verdict, her explanation of the "veggie law" cannot be used to urge the appeals court to reconsider the case, said Charles L. "Chip" Babcock, Winfrey's attorney.

Any cattleman who wanted to bring a fresh lawsuit might be able o use it, but it has no effect on this case, Babcock said.

Calls to reach attorneys for the cattlemen were not immediately returned.

Mad cow disease, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), is a brain disorder in cattle, "the nature of which is not yet fully understood," according to the World Health Organization. Some scientists believe it might be transmissible to humans.

When an outbreak of a new variant of the disease occurred in the United Kingdom in 1996, Britain announced a temporary ban on the sale of beef from certain types of cattle.

Winfrey was never sued by any statewide organization of Texas cattlemen but by an individual cattle producer, Paul Engler, and Bill O'Brien, the managing partner of Texas Beef Group, which includes 5 cattle companies.

The idea that the whole cattle industry sued Winfrey is a misconception some in cattlemen resent. Charles Carter, executive director of the Independent Cattlemen's Association of Texas, told CBS News that while Engler and O'Brien sued the talk show host, "We were kind of praising her."