Day 084 - 07 Feb 95 - Page 16
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is what Ms. Steel has said.
2
3 MS. STEEL: No. My concern is wider than that. My concern is
4 that with a leaflet like that, they have just marked the
5 whole of it. Then Mr. Rampton says: "I can pick and
6 choose which parts I want to determine". It is no help to
7 have the whole of the leaflet marked up and then be told:
8 "Well, actually, I am not going to contend all of it is
9 false".
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right. In due course, I will hear whatever
12 Mr. Rampton wants to say about that, not, I suggest, at the
13 moment. What about the admissions? It is partly -- I am
14 happy to confess -- for my education but also it may help
15 if the Defendants just hear you say it quite shortly.
16
17 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, it is, happily, we believe a very
18 straightforward question: Where a party (and this, if
19 I may say it, might be a slightly rough and ready way of
20 putting it) makes an admission (and, in our submission, it
21 does not matter whether the admission is in the pleading or
22 by way of formal notice which is the way we have done it
23 or, indeed, by way of witness statement or by evidence in
24 court) that such and such an allegation or assertion made
25 against him by the opposite party is true in the terms in
26 which it is put, so far as determination of the factual
27 content of that issue is concerned, that is an end of the
28 matter and further evidence either for or against the
29 matter admitted is excluded.
30
31 There may be a variety of reasons why a party makes an
32 admission; most often it will be to save time and cost at
33 trial. What this means, by way of example, is that since
34 what the Defendants have pleaded in relation to the Preston
35 incident in 1991 has been admitted in the same terms as it
36 has been alleged, all factual evidence relating to that
37 issue, as to its causes and its effects, is excluded.
38
39 It follows from that, by way of example, that though
40 Mr. Morris may wish to put a Civil Evidence Act on to some
41 report or other about the incident, that report becomes
42 irrelevant because the fact has been admitted.
43
44 What does not follow from an admission of a factual
45 allegation, unless it is done expressly, is that such
46 reasonable inferences as may be drawn from those facts are
47 excluded; they are not. Thus, it was, I suspect, though
48 your Lordship said way back that whilst documents relating
49 to the causes and effects of the Preston outbreak were not
50 disclosable because there had been an admission and,
51 therefore, there was no longer an issue between the
52 parties, what was relevant or might be relevant was
53 McDonald's reaction, response, to what it has admitted
54 happened. That is an example.
55
56 It does not preclude the Defendants from saying on the one
57 hand: "Well, this is very serious. One can infer from it
58 that McDonald's do not take their customers' health
59 seriously". It does not precludes me from saying: "Yes,
60 it happened but one swallow does not a make summer and,
