Day 171 - 11 Oct 95 - Page 32


     
     1        documentation in relation to limited days which might
     2        include the people who have been named, so in so far as
     3        I am contemplating that discovery is justified to that
     4        extent, why should I exclude all the others?  The only
     5        objection for having all the others in in the first place
     6        was that the discovery would be too copious.
     7
     8   MR. RAMPTON:  Oh, my Lord, that is only one objection.  If one
     9        can go back to first principles, suppose that there had
    10        been a proper pleading based on what Mr. Logan had said in
    11        his written statement, which is in the utmost generality, a
    12        pleading saying that people were regularly scheduled at
    13        unsocial hours, or whatever, as a way of punishing them,
    14        that would have been the subject of a request for further
    15        and better particulars, which is in effect what we have
    16        done in this case, because when Mr. Morris first raised
    17        this I said to your Lordship -- and I believe your Lordship
    18        was inclined to agree with me -- that I was not willing to
    19        give discovery until I had chapter and verse from
    20        Mr. Logan.  Lo and behold, Mr. Morris having spoken to
    21        Mr. Logan on the telephone, we got chapter and verse for a
    22        number of people; and I believe that I must make discovery
    23        in relation to those people.  What I do not understand is
    24        why I should be compelled to allow Mr. Morris and Ms. Steel
    25        to trawl through the documents for a case which they do not
    26        presently have on the evidence of their witness.
    27
    28        If they were not able to give names and rough dates in
    29        answer to a request for particulars in the ordinary case,
    30        then the application would be made to strike it out.  It
    31        would not be allowed.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  Except, you see, normally you would
    34        have discovery before you had your witness statements and
    35        then, having had the discovery, you would embark on your
    36        witness statement.  For reasons which appealed to me at the
    37        time -- and I have to say still do -- Drake J. decided it
    38        should be done the other way round, in effect, and
    39        I certainly ruled to that effect afterwards.
    40
    41        If you are going to have discovery of document X on the
    42        basis of a statement which you have got, so that the
    43        document is actually going to be there, why not have the
    44        lot in?  You have decided that discovery is justified on
    45        the statements you have.
    46
    47   MR. RAMPTON:  No, my Lord, I did not concede that.  I said
    48        I would not make the discovery, unless ordered to do so,
    49        until I had details.  It is when the details came with the
    50        names and approximate dates in some cases, that I said, 
    51        right, now we must make discovery for those pleaded 
    52        cases -- if I may put it like that.  The rest of all those 
    53        dozens of names on those sheets of paper are not pleaded.
    54
    55        As I say, I am quite willing to make a compromise which
    56        might appeal to your Lordship, that the identity of the
    57        people concerned cannot be relevant until they are pleaded
    58        as particular examples of malpractice by McDonald's, which
    59        is, in effect, what Mr. Logan is saying, for all that the
    60        documents may show it is not true.  What I do not believe

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