Dip in Beef Prices Seasonal, Expert Says in Oprah Trial

A livestock expert who testified that an April 1996 episode of Oprah Winfrey’s show caused cattle prices to drop acknowledged Wednesday that the market for beef goes down every spring.

A day earlier, Wayne Purcell, a Virginia Tech professor who produces a newsletter on the livestock market, said the show--which contained a 10-minute segment on mad-cow disease--caused “a significant and rather dramatic shock” to cattle prices.

Defense attorneys asked Purcell on Wednesday if cattle prices usually have a seasonal drop. He acknowledged that the spring is a period “in the year when prices will typically go down and then go up.”

Purcell testified on behalf of cattlemen suing Winfrey, her production company and vegetarian activist Howard Lyman--who appeared on the show--for more than $10 million. After the show aired last year, prices dropped from $61.90 to $55 per hundredweight, Purcell said.

In later testimony Wednesday, two cattle brokers said the price of beef began falling as soon as the show went on the air on April 16, 1996.

Tim Brennan, a futures trader and board member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, said an associate told him just after 9 a.m. that the show was about U.S. beef and mad-cow disease.

Brennan placed a sell order for beef when trading opened at 9:05 a.m., just five minutes after the show went on the air in Chicago. Another trader, Fred Moore, testified that the program caused a flood of selling that morning.

On cross-examination, Winfrey attorney Charles Babcock implied that a reaction by traders--not the program itself--caused the price drop.

“You think [Winfrey] ought to pay $10 million because you thought what she said would stop housewives from buying hamburgers?” Babcock asked.

“This is true,” Brennan responded.