Day 053 - 22 Nov 94 - Page 34


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  There it is.
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  When we came to the fact that the evidence
     4        was unchallenged, then -- I take your point.
     5
     6   MR. RAMPTON:  It is not only that; I did not call any evidence;
     7        and I believe that Professor Wheelock said it, himself, in
     8        his evidence-in-chief, but I will have to check that.
     9
    10   MS. STEEL:  As we understood, the reason why they did not need
    11        to call any evidence was because they had admitted an
    12        association and, therefore, that was the end of the issue
    13        as pleaded.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You can check, but I think Mr. Rampton is
    16        right, that Professor Wheelock did say he accepted the
    17        causal relationship.
    18
    19   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  But the point is, they would not need to
    20        bring any evidence on heart disease if their admission on
    21        association was covering (as we say it did) the link,
    22        because there was no need to prove causal association.  The
    23        only time it has been needed to prove causality has been in
    24        the light of this new amendment that Mr. Rampton is trying
    25        to make now.
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I understand the arguments on both sides.
    28
    29   MS. STEEL:  As I was saying, this argument was prepared for the
    30        specific admission on a causal relationship between diet
    31        and heart disease.  In the light of that admission, I do
    32        not know that we really need to go into number 10.
    33
    34        Going on to number 11 -- and this is referring to the fact
    35        that we were advised by you to ask Dr. Barnard, at least,
    36        questions about the existence of a causal link between diet
    37        and cancer in case the Plaintiffs won this application --
    38        we submit that this is not a satisfactory solution, for a
    39        number of reasons:  that we may well have engaged different
    40        experts if the pleadings had alleged that the passage in
    41        the leaflet meant there was a causal link between
    42        McDonald's meals and cancer; that we prepared our case and
    43        questioning, cross-examination, et cetera, on the basis of
    44        the Plaintiffs' pleaded case, reinforced by the admission
    45        that they had made a non-admission of any link between diet
    46        and cancer; and that we did not specifically concentrate
    47        ourselves on "cause".  Obviously "cause" cropped up, but
    48        that was not something we concentrated on.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have to say that I have done quite a bit of 
    51        re-reading, and I do have difficulty with that.  Maybe it 
    52        was not exclusively what you dealt with -- I accept that -- 
    53        you dealt with other factors, as well, but there was a very
    54        considerable amount of cross-examination of the relevant
    55        witnesses about "cause".
    56
    57   MS. STEEL:  In terms of Mr. Wheelock, I think that at the
    58        most -- I am not sure -- we only asked him about "cause"
    59        maybe 20 times, or that "cause" was only mentioned during
    60        cross-examination 20 times at most; whereas words like

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