The Law can often, by those who have limited interest in it, be perceived as dull. Boring. However, this is not the case. Not only is it a fundamental aspect of society, and one without which it is arguable we could not function, there are also a number of fascinating cases throughout history. I will outline here just a few of those that I find particularly engaging.
- Procter & Gamble UK v HM Revenue and Customs
This case focused on a classic, well-loved tubed snack: Pringles. In the UK, there is a 20% VAT on items regarded as luxuries, such as ice cream, cereal bars, cake decorations, and, crucially for this case, crisps. Expectedly, Procter & Gamble (producers of Pringles) did not want to pay this 20% VAT, which would come to a total of around £100 million if Pringles were in fact considered crisps. It may seem bizarre that Pringles could not be regarded as crisp. On the packaging, however, they are described as a “savoury snack”, and in 2008 a judge ruled that, because Pringles were only 3% potato flour and 39% vegetable oil, they weren’t crisps, as they could not be argued to be made of potato flour. But in 2009, HMRC took the case to the Court of Appeal, and despite Procter & Gamble’s strenuous arguments that there’s nothing crisp-like about a Pringle, HMRC won and Pringles were judged to be crisps.
2. R v Dudley and Stephens
If you were stranded at sea with two others, how far would you go to stay alive? How far would you go to get food? Would you resort to cannibalism? Necessity. Surely, you would be killing to stay alive, thus you would not have had any other choice. This is not always an adequate defence, as highlighted by R v Dudley and Stephens. In 1884, Tom Dudley, Edwin Stephens, Edmund Brooks and Richard Parker were shipwrecked and stranded in a lifeboat, 700 miles from the nearest land without any fresh water and with just two tins of turnips to eat. This was the situation of the 5th of July. But by the 17th of July, they had eaten the turnips and a whole turtle that they had caught. By the 24th of July, Parker was in a coma. Dudley and Stephens, having realised that they had no other way to stay alive, killed Parker, and the remaining men (including Brooks) resorted to cannibalism. On the 29th of July, they were rescued: 24 days after they first found themselves on the lifeboat. Public opinion was strongly sympathetic to Dudley and Stephens, and so, when the case came to trial, their defence was paid for by public opinion. The judiciary, however, wanted to establish that necessity was not a defence that could be used for murder. Therefore, Dudley and Stephens were convicted of murder but were only sentenced to 6 months in prison.
3. Liebeck v McDonald’s (US)
On the 27th of February 1992, Stella Liebeck ordered a cup of coffee from a McDonald’s drive-through, for 49 cents. She was in the passenger’s seat of a car that did not have cup holders. While adding cream and sugar to the coffee, Liebeck put the coffee between her knees and removed the lid but accidentally spilt the entire cup. Because she was wearing cotton trousers, they absorbed the coffee and fused to her skin, causing third-degree burns. She spent 8 days in the hospital, undergoing skin grafting, and she lost 20 pounds and needed extra care for three weeks. She was partially disabled for the next two years. Liebeck sought $20,000 from McDonald’s to cover her medical expenses, but they only offered $800. So, she filed a lawsuit against the chain, accusing them of gross negligence for selling her coffee that was “defectively manufactured” and “unreasonably dangerous”. After two more attempts to settle the suit out of court, and McDonald’s refusing both times, the case went to trial. During the hearings, it was revealed that they had received more than 700 reports of people being burned by their coffee. The jury, therefore, found McDonald’s to be 80% responsible for the incident and awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensation. She then also received $2.7 million in punitive damages, calculated as two days’ worth of coffee sales for McDonald’s.
4. R v Thabo-Meli
In 1954, four men in a gang decided to murder someone and make it look like it was an accident. They brought the victim to a hut, where they made sure he was heavily drunk and hit him on the head with the intent of killing him. They believed that they had killed him (although they had only knocked him unconscious), so they threw his body over a cliff, and he survived that, too, but later died of exposure. To commit murder, you need to have a mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (guilty deed) at the same time, that is to say that killing someone when you didn’t intend to isn’t murder, and thinking of killing someone but not doing it isn’t murder either. At trial, the four men argued that they had intended to kill him in the hut, but actually killed him by leaving him exposed to the elements at the base of the cliff, therefore the mens rea and actus reus did not happen at the same time. The ruling, however, sustained that it was all part of the same act, and found them guilty of murder.
Just 4 cases here, but they give a fascinating insight into the interesting nature of the law and all it encompasses.
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