TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey went on trial in Texas yesterday, accused of harming the US beef industry by falsely telling her viewers that American meat could cause mad cow disease.
Jury selection began in Amarillo, home to majestic ranches and real cowboys. Its largest private employer is a slaughterhouse and a livestock mural is painted above the courthouse lifts.
But the queen of television talk has the advantage of celebrity. There was nearly a stampede for tickets after word got out that she would tape her show in Amarillo tomorrow and on Friday.
"There's push and pull on both sides," said Mr Bobby Lee of the Big Texan Steak Ranch, who gives away 72-ounce steaks to anyone who can eat it in an hour.
Mr Paul Engler, a cattle feeder, is suing Ms Winfrey and a vegetarian activist, Mr Howard Lyman, over comments they made about beef safety on her show in April 1996. Mr Lyman said that feeding ground-up animal parts to cattle, a practice banned in the US last summer, could spread mad cow disease to humans in the US.
To applause from the studio audience, Ms Winfrey exclaimed: "It has just stopped me from eating another burger!" After the show slumping cattle prices fell to some of their lowest levels in a decade, and Mr Engler claimed he lost millions.
He and other plaintiffs who later joined the suit are seeking to recoup their losses, plus other, unspecified damages. Defence lawyers blame other factors, such as oversupply and decreased demand.
Ms Winfrey's lawyers tried unsuccessfully to have the case moved to Dallas, a more cosmopolitan city about a six-hour drive away.
According to court documents, the defence lawyers would be happy with an Amarillo trial if they could discuss the case publicly. Instead, they are bound by a gagging order imposed by US District Judge Mary Lou Robinson.
Industry insiders say the less heard about the case, the better. Mr Clark Willingham, president-elect of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, worries that the trial will dredge up fears about mad cow disease - the thing that started the case in the first place.
The lawsuit could be the biggest test yet of "veggie libel" laws, enacted in more than a dozen states to protect agricultural products from false and disparaging remarks.
"You can't run up in a theatre and say `Fire!' or `Bomb!'," said Mr Bob Turner, a state politician and farmer who wrote Texas's 1995 agriculture disparagement law. "Freedom of speech ends where other people's freedoms begin and where the truth is not known to be involved."
Mr Bruce Johnson, a lawyer who successfully defended the CBS television network against apple growers upset over a 1989 TV news magazine report about the growth regulator Alar, believes such laws violate the constitution.
"The question here is not whether someone is yelling `Fire!' in a theatre," he said. "The question is whether they can discuss whether there is a fire."