Day 164 - 26 Sep 95 - Page 42
1 specific time when a member of the management team has
2 written a statement and he has specified particular
3 practices that were sometimes, regularly or generally --
4 the words he uses -- used by management in certain ways.
5 He is going to say that in court and, of course, McDonald's
6 will bring a witness to say that is all untrue. The
7 documents will be a great aid to the court in helping the
8 witnesses and also helping the court to see what they are
9 talking about and whether it is true or not, what they are
10 talking about. I do not see any problem with the
11 Plaintiffs disclosing those.
12
13 As far as the incident report forms for the food poisoning
14 complaints about under-cooking of food products, McDonald's
15 are only bothered about the ones that are substantiated.
16 I do not see that is a very responsible way to go about
17 things. For a start, they are not an independent
18 investigation. They have every interest in avoiding proper
19 investigation and in substantiating anything. The amount
20 of complaints does matter. The substance of the complaints
21 does matter. The fact that some are substantiated is
22 important. That may be an indication that, in fact, 20
23 times as many are food poisoning incidents. I certainly
24 would not base the truth on just the ones admitted by the
25 Plaintiffs.
26
27 So I do not see how our witness could be expected to name
28 the names and the days of all the food poisoning complaints
29 or under-cooked burger complaints that he remembers in the
30 year 1994. He is saying it happened regularly about once a
31 week. So I think we are entitled to those documents which
32 will help the court on the issue as a whole.
33
34 The French witnesses.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let us just pause there for a moment before
37 you go to the French witnesses, because I propose to give
38 my ruling on all these matters in one judgment with my
39 reasons. But, as Mr. Rampton has said at the moment it is
40 proposed to call Mr. Richards at the beginning of next
41 week, I will merely indicate now that I propose not to make
42 any order for discovery in respect of the matters set out
43 in A, B and C of paragraph 4 of your 11th September
44 letter.
45
46 I would be prepared to consider the matter if there is a
47 supplemental statement from Mr. Logan specifying the
48 identity of employees' concerned and giving more
49 particularity as to dates. So I will leave the door open
50 if you do that.
51
52 I will when I give my ruling say that there should be
53 disclosure of any incident report forms in 1994 in relation
54 to under-cooked food specifically. So that is an
55 indication of what the ruling will be in advance of the
56 formal ruling so that both sides can consider their
57 position.
58
59 Yes. You were going to say something more about French
60 witnesses?
