Day 019 - 27 Jul 94 - Page 75
1 MS. STEEL: No.
2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, that is a different one. It was a
survey carried out in this country which showed that X per
3 cent had up to three meals a week. We had a
questionnaire, Mr. Rampton. That is the one which asked
4 about meals. Beneath it had various dishes, cheeseburger,
something else, and that was the questionnaire with no
5 answers on it. Then about two or three pages further on,
if my recollection is right, we had an extract of what the
6 response amounted to. We had details on what percentage
of customers had a meal once or twice, do you remember?
7 We had six plus, was the one on the end. We had an
argument about whether that meant six or seven or more.
8 What we did not have was an abstract of the answers as to
what meals they ate.
9
Professor Wheelock came up with the answer which, I say in
10 his absence, rather surprised me, drink be a meal.
Therefore, it was thought it might be relevant to know
11 what the people said they had eaten, because if it was
possible to produce an abstract that X per cent eat twice
12 a week, it might be equally easy to say they all ate
cheeseburgers or a Big Mac, or 15 per cent of them went
13 for a Big Mac. Do you see what I mean?
14 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, I do.
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It might be very easy to produce that
information, then we can see where, if anywhere, it takes
16 us.
17 MR. RAMPTON: It sounds like evidence rather than discovery.
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It may be, except that the percentages,
eating one, two or three meals a week, was produced in
19 documentary form.
20 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, it may be easy to do by way of a summary
than by actually producing volumes of documents.
21
MR. JUSTICE BELL: That was the second area in any event. If
22 I could just deal with accident statistics. You may or
may not want to argue it. I have reminded myself what you
23 said in opening about what they produce, looking at the
number of restaurants.
24
MR. RAMPTON: I think the words I used were .2.
25
MR. JUSTICE BELL: I cannot remember specifically. All I will
26 indicate, as you know, I never decide anything until
I have heard all the argument, but at the moment I can see
27 a lot of reason for producing such accident statistics as
they are, if they are reasonably readily available, and it
28 does not involve looking at statistics for every
restaurant and then adding them up. I was left with the
29 impression, I think, by the American witness -- I cannot
remember, I have forgotten the American gentleman's name.
30
MR. MORRIS: Mr. Beavers.
