Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 45


     
     1        make this my best point because I am conscious that some
     2        people, including even members of the Bar, are inclined to
     3        use the word "after" as though it meant "because of", this
     4        is particularly true of journalists and others, but it also
     5        is a vice to which lawyers are sometime prone, the first
     6        thing to observe is that neither those paragraphs is, on
     7        its face, an accusation that McDonald's are responsible for
     8        what happened.  It is an error of grammar, I suspect.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am reading it as meaning "as a result of".
    11
    12   MR. RAMPTON:  Assuming that is the right way to read it ----
    13
    14   MR. MORRIS:  Can I just say a legal point, is it not fair to
    15        assume that all the points of justification, we are asked
    16        to provide further particulars to justify a particular
    17        pleading, which is basically that meat and chicken are
    18        responsible for food poisoning incidents or whatever, and
    19        therefore all the points of justification should be seen in
    20        that context, that they are saying that the source of the
    21        problem is the food poisoning from the meat or
    22        whatever -----
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I thought I just said I am reading "after" as
    25        meaning "as a result of".
    26
    27   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  That would also apply to the Preston thing.
    28        For example, when we pleaded it we were assuming that
    29        meant, of course, that that was to justify the allegation
    30        that meat is responsible for food poisoning incidents.  So,
    31        when the Plaintiffs make an admission, we are assuming they
    32        are admitting the context in which the justification -----
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  They are admitting the specific
    35        pleading.  Where we go from there we will have to see.  By
    36        the "specific pleading" I mean the specific reference to
    37        Preston or Oregon, if what Mr. Rummel says amounts to an
    38        admission and so on.
    39
    40   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I mention that because I have had cases
    41        in the past when one has found something like this so
    42        tactically ambiguous or worse, and one is asked for
    43        particulars, "Are you saying we were responsible?" and the
    44        answer is, "No, it happened" in which case one has been
    45        prompted to strike it out.
    46
    47   MS. STEEL:  It is intended to read "as a result of".
    48
    49   MR. RAMPTON:  I am grateful for that assurance which is why
    50        I raised it because one needs to be sure.  In that case, it 
    51        would have to be said (I will come back to Silver Spring 
    52        for another purpose and with another argument in due 
    53        course) that for that purpose it has to be accepted that
    54        neither paragraph 2 nor paragraph 3 is, strictly speaking,
    55        an admission that McDonald's were responsible for the
    56        outbreak.  Your Lordship may think, and this is what is
    57        important in the context of an application for discovery,
    58        that in both cases what is stated by Mr. Rummel, which is
    59        the facts with some elucidation but all apart from the
    60        strict admission of liability, the facts are entirely on

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