Day 115 - 06 Apr 95 - Page 56


     
     1        of what the letters say and not the truth of what they say,
     2        then, of course, I can agree with your Lordship, if they
     3        are authentic documents which these very likely are.  But,
     4        if the Defendants seek to rely on them as evidence of what
     5        was actually happening in corroboration of, for example,
     6        Mr. Bruton's evidence, why, then they must call the witness
     7        to say:  "Yes, this is actually what happened.  These were
     8        the rates of loading; these were the numbers of people that
     9        we used at that time".
    10
    11        That is what the Defendants want them for; they do not want
    12        them for expressions of intention because, as expressions
    13        of intention, they prove nothing about the factual
    14        situation on the ground.  Therefore, if they want to use
    15        them as evidence of the truth of their contents as an
    16        historical record of events, I may well decide that I am
    17        going to serve a counter notice in which case they will
    18        have to call the witness.
    19
    20   MS. STEEL:  If I could just make an observation?  Firstly, they
    21        are three separate documents, as far as I am aware.  I do
    22        not think they are directly connected to one another.
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I should unpin them then, should I?
    25
    26   MS. STEEL:  Yes, you could do.
    27
    28   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Because otherwise it may look as if the ones
    29        which are not ----
    30
    31   MS. STEEL:  The other thing is Mr. Rampton complained about not
    32        having time to read them.  I handed them to him this
    33        morning.  We did have a long lunch break and he did say he
    34        was a quick reader.
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  He obviously has other things to read and he
    37        may or not choose to read something when it is handed.  Do
    38        I understand what the position is?  As I understand the
    39        position, you can just leave the matters that you have
    40        produced, these documents, which, on the face of it anyway,
    41        appear to be Sun Valley documents, and remind me at some
    42        stage in the future to ask Mr. Rampton whether it is
    43        accepted that they are two copies of Sun Valley ----
    44
    45   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, it is easier than that because if I have
    46        a dispute then I have to produce a notice -----
    47
    48   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That is helpful, so they can be assumed to be
    49        authentic documents unless you get a notice to the
    50        contrary.  All that proves in strict evidence is that the 
    51        documents were made.  It does not actually prove the truth 
    52        of the statement in them.  If you would like to look at the 
    53        26th January 1993 document, for instance, a statement which
    54        you would actually like to have in evidence as evidence of
    55        the truth of the statement, to give an example, you can do
    56        that, something which would be important to you.
    57
    58   MS. STEEL:   The thing is, the reason I want the Civil Evidence
    59        Act Notice on this is so that they are evidence of what the
    60        company was doing or planning to do.

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