Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 16
1 caused the eviction of small farmers, to recognise that the
2 relationship is causal but that McDonald's themselves do
3 not evict the small farmers. They have not said McDonald's
4 evict the small farmers, they say McDonald's causes that to
5 happen. And this, we would say, is a recognition that the
6 relationship -- although these relationships, although one
7 thing results from another -- works through economics and
8 through a system and a chain rather than direct --
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let us see where you are going then. They
11 have not accepted that they have caused the eviction, but
12 they have pleaded that that is part of the meaning is what
13 you are saying. Whether it is by purchasing large tracts
14 of land in poor countries or not, you are saying that part
15 of the charge is that they have caused the eviction of
16 small farmers?
17
18 MR. MORRIS: Yes. That is what they have said. What I am
19 saying about that is that they do not say that we said that
20 in this fact sheet. Not that, of course, we have been
21 shown to have ever handed it out, but they have said that
22 we have said not that McDonald's evicts farmers but that
23 McDonald's causes that to happen. Now, this is a very
24 important point because it would be absurd, and a meaning
25 as far as I understand it, under the law, an absurd
26 meaning, cannot be found, should not be found, when
27 something is patently absurd. Nobody reading this fact
28 sheet would think that McDonald's employees are engaged in
29 chopping down trees or evicting small farmers, the meaning
30 is clear that McDonald's are responsible, as one of several
31 giant corporations, for this process which results in the
32 eviction of small farmers and results in the use of lethal
33 poisons to destroy vast areas of central American
34 rainforest. I would say that McDonald's pleaded meaning A
35 as a recognition that it is the chain of events that is the
36 centre of this section of the case.
37
38 So that is what I am saying about that phrase "caused the
39 eviction" and -----.
40
41 MR JUSTICE BELL: Can I just take that as an example and then we
42 will break off? We will break off until twelve o'clock.
43 I think at some stage you have got to tell me -- let us
44 suppose you cannot justify any allegation that they have
45 had anything to do with actually buying land in these three
46 countries, let us suppose for the purpose of argument that
47 I was against you on that.
48
49 MR. MORRIS: We have not tried to justify that because that is
50 what it says.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let us suppose that is true. Nevertheless,
53 you go on to say that becomes irrelevant because what the
54 leaflet means is that they have caused farmers to have to
55 leave their land.
56
57 MR. MORRIS: That is what McDonald's have pleaded.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What?
60
