Day 242 - 29 Apr 96 - Page 34


     
     1   MS. STEEL:  If the Plaintiffs ----
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just pause a minute, please.  Looking at my
     4        finding on the meaning, you have the issue anyway as to
     5        whether eating McDonald's food may well make your diet high
     6        in fat et cetera, and then suppose you got over that
     7        hurdle, suppose you established that it may make your diet
     8        high in fat, you have got to look at the issue:  If that is
     9        so, does that bring with it the very real risk that you
    10        will suffer cancer of the breast or bowl or heart disease
    11        as a result?
    12
    13        It is really in relation to those two questions, and
    14        perhaps particularly the last, but those two questions,
    15        that you have to ask yourself which of the witnesses whose
    16        statements we served whom we have not already called do we
    17        want to call now?
    18
    19        Professor Crawford is coming back anyway and I have said
    20        that quite apart from cross-examination by Mr. Rampton, if
    21        you want to ask him any further matters in chief, the
    22        meaning having now been defined before Mr. Rampton
    23        cross-examines him further, then you may do so.
    24
    25   MS. STEEL: Okay.  If we suppose that we have established that
    26        eating McDonald's food can make your diet high in fat, then
    27        previously the issue would have been:  Could that cause
    28        heart disease in their customers, in people who then had
    29        the high fat diet who were customers of theirs?
    30
    31        Your meaning has to come within that and that was the part
    32        that was admitted.  Your meaning must come within that and,
    33        therefore, very real risk must be admitted.
    34
    35   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It was not admitted.  It was not admitted
    36        that a McDonald's diet causes heart disease.
    37
    38   MS. STEEL:  No.  You are saying that suppose we establish that
    39        McDonald's food makes someone's diet high in fat and that
    40        now the current situation is that we then have to establish
    41        that that brings a very real risk that you suffer heart
    42        disease as a result.
    43
    44   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What was on the McDonald's pleading was:
    45        Suppose that it does make your diet high in fat, then does
    46        it cause heart disease or some lesser meaning, and the
    47        lesser meaning, in my judgment as it is which I find, was
    48        very real risk that you will suffer heart disease?
    49
    50   MS. STEEL:  Yes. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  So, the question now, the defined meaning, is 
    53        assuming for the purposes of posing the question, assuming
    54        that eating McDonald's food may very well make your diet
    55        high in fat, does make your diet high in fat, assuming that
    56        for the purposes of the question, does that carry with it
    57        the very real risk that you will suffer heart disease as a
    58        result and I certainly do not think McDonald's have
    59        admitted that because one of their main points is there is
    60        a big difference, they say, between an epidemiological

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