Day 313 - 13 Dec 96 - Page 34
1 MS. STEEL: No, the point was that they handed them up and
2 thereby waived their privilege in relation to those
3 documents and, obviously, all the connected documents which
4 are their files on this case. So, we believe that we are
5 therefore entitled to copies of the entire files.
6
7 MR. RAMPTON: I really do not know who the Defendants have been
8 speaking to. An attendance note recording an inter-parties
9 conversation between solicitors is in no different case
10 from correspondence, and the authority for that is a case
11 called Parry v News Group Newspapers, 1990 140 New Law
12 Journal page 1719. It is absolutely baffling, this
13 application, in fact, if it had been important I would have
14 asked your Lordship to look at the attendance notes because
15 that is what they are, they are oral correspondence.
16
17 MS. STEEL: They are not all reports of hearings, they are also
18 reports of 'phone conversations, and so on, between
19 solicitors.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I see nothing which has waived all Barlows
22 files in relation to this case. If you want the attendance
23 notes to go back in, let them go back in, because I need
24 not bother myself about waiver or matters of law, what that
25 would amount to is that both sides agreed that they should
26 go in, and I will look at anything which both sides have
27 agreed that I should see.
28
29 MS. STEEL: Certainly, if they went in then the whole file
30 should be disclosed.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You must make up your mind. I am not looking
33 at the attendance notes unless you ask me to. If you want
34 me to look at the attendance notes they will go back in,
35 but there is no question of waiver of a whole file.
36
37 MS. STEEL: Well, not, because these attendance notes are
38 inaccurate and that is why we believe that if they were in
39 we would be entitled to the whole file.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you say they are inaccurate, I am not going
42 to look at them. I will look at the inter-parties
43 correspondence in that clip, and that is all.
44
45 MS. STEEL: Right. The other matter which I wish to clear up
46 before I forget about it. I mean, this should have come up
47 under advertising but this is something that I think has
48 probably got lost in this case, but it is something that we
49 do want to rely on as evidence, which was a notice which
50 I served on 22nd June 1994 that we wished to use the
51 following statement as evidence under the Civil Evidence
52 Act. The statement is, "In McDonald's Land there is a
53 hamburger patch". The story opens with Ronald harvesting
54 the hamburgers bushes from the hamburger patch.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is the document?
57
58 MS. STEEL: Hold on. "We feel that the children have a great
59 deal of influence on..."
60
