Day 164 - 26 Sep 95 - Page 43
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2 MR. MORRIS: This is one of Mr. Rampton's allegedly marginal
3 unimportant sort of thing. It does not really affect
4 McDonald's Corporation, yet they are going to bring two or
5 three franchisees as witnesses to deal with. So obviously
6 it is a very important issue. We have not got any
7 statements yet or any names of witnesses that the
8 Plaintiffs intend to call, even though our statements were
9 served last year. But, again to benefit the court and to
10 benefit the witnesses on both sides, if any documents exist
11 in the possession, power or control of the Plaintiffs they
12 should be disclosed. We have not had any documents
13 disclosed yet about this incident that we served witness
14 statements from a year ago.
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16 The argument about whether a document is in the possession,
17 power or control of the Plaintiffs would follow after they
18 are ordered to give discovery of any relevant documents in
19 their possession, power and control. The point is we are
20 applying for documents which we believe will be in the
21 control of the Plaintiffs. I am sure the McDonald's
22 Corporation investigated this highly controversial (and
23 continuing to be controversial) situation, an investigation
24 by the authorities, in fact, and into their McDonald's
25 stores there. I am pretty certain they would have wanted
26 to see all the relevant documents.
27
28 Again, I think this is a question of a simple order that
29 they provide any documents which they are under an
30 obligation to give in any case, a general obligation, on
31 this issue, but we have specified particularly these 50
32 statements if they are in their possession, power and
33 control.
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35 OK, if they do not exist or if they not in their
36 possession, power and control, then we deal with that when
37 we come to it. I do not think we need to jump the gun and
38 have a trial within a trial at this stage until we know
39 what the response is by the Plaintiffs to them being
40 ordered to hand over the documents.
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42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you want to take the break there? On the
43 list of discovery matters which occur to me that would
44 leave the question of full notes of Enquiry Agents.
45
46 (Short Adjournment)
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48 MS. STEEL: To be honest, I had not prepared to do the argument
49 on the blanked out passages in the statements, but I think
50 it is a fairly simple argument, although I am not in a
51 position to refer to all the different examples.
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53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think you have to do so because without
54 looking up the GE case I have to have some reason to
55 presume that the parts which McDonald's say are not
56 relevant are or are likely to be. That is no doubt a
57 rather inaccurate summary of GE Capital but it is probably
58 the essence of it. I will obviously hear what you say, but
59 I do not think you can assume that I will just say, yes,
60 well, they were enquiring into what was going on in the
