Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 16


     
     1        caused the eviction of small farmers, to recognise that the
     2        relationship is causal but that McDonald's themselves do
     3        not evict the small farmers.  They have not said McDonald's
     4        evict the small farmers, they say McDonald's causes that to
     5        happen.  And this, we would say, is a recognition that the
     6        relationship -- although these relationships, although one
     7        thing results from another -- works through economics and
     8        through a system and a chain rather than direct --
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Let us see where you are going then.  They
    11        have not accepted that they have caused the eviction, but
    12        they have pleaded that that is part of the meaning is what
    13        you are saying.  Whether it is by purchasing large tracts
    14        of land in poor countries or not, you are saying that part
    15        of the charge is that they have caused the eviction of
    16        small farmers?
    17
    18   MR. MORRIS:   Yes.  That is what they have said.  What I am
    19        saying about that is that they do not say that we said that
    20        in this fact sheet.  Not that, of course, we have been
    21        shown to have ever handed it out, but they have said that
    22        we have said not that McDonald's evicts farmers but that
    23        McDonald's causes that to happen.  Now, this is a very
    24        important point because it would be absurd, and a meaning
    25        as far as I understand it, under the law, an absurd
    26        meaning, cannot be found, should not be found, when
    27        something is patently absurd.  Nobody reading this fact
    28        sheet would think that McDonald's employees are engaged in
    29        chopping down trees or evicting small farmers, the meaning
    30        is clear that McDonald's are responsible, as one of several
    31        giant corporations, for this process which results in the
    32        eviction of small farmers and results in the use of lethal
    33        poisons to destroy vast areas of central American
    34        rainforest.  I would say that McDonald's pleaded meaning A
    35        as a recognition that it is the chain of events that is the
    36        centre of this section of the case.
    37
    38        So that is what I am saying about that phrase "caused the
    39        eviction"  and -----.
    40
    41   MR JUSTICE BELL:  Can I just take that as an example and then we
    42        will break off?  We will break off until twelve o'clock.
    43        I think at some stage you have got to tell me -- let us
    44        suppose you cannot justify any allegation that they have
    45        had anything to do with actually buying land in these three
    46        countries, let us suppose for the purpose of argument that
    47        I was against you on that.
    48
    49   MR. MORRIS:   We have not tried to justify that because that is
    50        what it says. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Let us suppose that is true.  Nevertheless, 
    53        you go on to say that becomes irrelevant because what the
    54        leaflet means is that they have caused farmers to have to
    55        leave their land.
    56
    57   MR. MORRIS:   That is what McDonald's have pleaded.
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   What?
    60

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