Day 115 - 06 Apr 95 - Page 57
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just give me an example so he can talk in
3 practical terms about it. Give me a page number in the
4 letter and paragraph, for instance.
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6 MS. STEEL: I do not know really the whole of it.
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8 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, perhaps I can help, because I do not
9 believe Ms. Steel (it is not her fault and I have said that
10 before) understands this very well. At the penultimate,
11 and this is an obvious page upon which the Defendants might
12 wish to rely, it is page numbered 5 at the top against an
13 oblique sign under "Conditions of Employment of Catchers".
14 This is the penultimate page of the bundle I have got. At
15 the right at the bottom it says "Schedule loading times".
16 It says: "As a guideline these will be", and then it gives
17 different times for different numbers of drawers of
18 chickens.
19
20 My Lord, as an expression of intention by the company, it
21 is what it says it is, if this is a Sun Valley document; no
22 more than that. As proof of what actually happened, if it
23 did, it is not any evidence at all.
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25 MS. STEEL: No. I want them as evidence of what the
26 company ----
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28 MR. RAMPTON: Was saying at the time.
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30 MS. STEEL: Yes. I do not really quite understand the
31 particular distinction. The whole document is about the
32 conditions of employment which they lay down. It may be
33 that they do not work exactly -- that when the workers have
34 to work fast, for example, they do not adhere exactly to
35 that, but the point is this is what the company, I do not
36 know, so you can have some idea of how the company is
37 thinking or working.
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39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am only enquiring into it because I do not
40 want you, as it were, to get caught out at the end of the
41 day thinking that if a document goes in you have evidence
42 of a matter of fact, and then a point is taken later, no.
43 Whatever the situation is, is any formality required with
44 regard to a Civil Evidence Act Notice, Mr. Rampton?
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46 MR. RAMPTON: No, not if your Lordship dispenses with it, of
47 course it is not. Sometimes it is important to distinguish
48 the purpose for which one wants to serve a Civil Evidence
49 Act Notice. As your Lordship pointed out much earlier in
50 the case, it is no good sometimes just plonking a Civil
51 Evidence Act Notice on the whole document. What you have
52 to do is identify the statement or statements in the
53 document whose truth or whose quality of evidence you want
54 to rely on to prove an actual fact in the case.
55
56 A document as a document, authentic if it be, is evidence
57 of no more than what it says on the face of it. It does
58 not prove anything really than that somebody said it at a
59 particular time.
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