Day 083 - 06 Feb 95 - Page 40
1 case against these Plaintiffs in this action.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: So, if that is right, what they can do is
4 they can assert the 80 tonnes ---
5
6 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- they can argue, for whatever chance it may
9 have of success, that 80 tonnes is enough -- whether that
10 will succeed or not, one will have to decide -- they can
11 argue 80 tonnes is enough for some indirect responsibility,
12 even if it comes from scrubbed plains of Brazil which have
13 never been rainforest or not for a million years, if that
14 were the situation. But what they cannot seek is discovery
15 of any other imports or exports, call them what you will,
16 because any allegation that there were further amounts, to
17 use Lord Justice Neill's phrase, if I remember it
18 correctly, is irrevocably bad, there is nothing to support
19 it -- irretrievably bad, I think.
20
21 MR. RAMPTON: That is right. You have to have a basis,
22 reasonable grounds, I think the Court of Appeal said, for
23 believing that it is so.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: And lack of knowledge of Dr. Gomez Gonzales
26 and Mr. David Walker, you said, is a negative which cannot
27 lead to a positive in any way.
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: Mr. David Walker is more than lack of
30 knowledge. He says, as far as he is concerned, that he is
31 the sole supplier of beef in this country of beef to
32 McDonald's (and always has been), it has never happened
33 here. So, so far as the Second Plaintiffs are concerned,
34 that is the end of the matter. The fact that Dr. Gomez
35 Gonzales who, I think, joined McDonald's in 1991 did not
36 know about an 80 tonne shipment to this country in
37 1983/1984 need surprise nobody, and certainly is not a
38 positive foundation for an allegation that it is happened
39 more than once or, which is much more to the point, that it
40 has happened habitually.
41
42 If the Defendants were in a position positively to assert
43 by reference to credible materials -- I do not say
44 admissible evidence -- that vast numbers of cattle were
45 being sacrificed in Brazil to be exported to McDonald's
46 outlets in the rest of the world, with the result that
47 people in Brazil were prompted to make more room for cattle
48 and by that route to impinge upon the welfare of the
49 rainforest, well, that would be a different matter.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But you can refine it more than that, can
52 you, by saying even if they are entitled to argue the 80
53 tonnes, they might be entitled to argue the effect of an
54 extra 100 if there was any evidence of it, but there is
55 absolutely no ---
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: There is no evidence.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- information, let alone evidence, to lead
60 one to make such an allegation.
