Day 042 - 31 Oct 94 - Page 42
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I treated the "mediocre" as going a bit
2 further than that.
3
4 MR. RAMPTON: Maybe.
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: All this is up for argument. I had thought
7 that implicit in that is that they advertised their food as
8 good for you----
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: ----when, in fact, at best it is mediocre.
13
14 MR. RAMPTON: At best, yes. But the whole theme of the Defence
15 on this part of case is that the food is actually, in our
16 submission -- of course it is a matter for argument -- "the
17 food is apt to kill you if you are not jolly careful".
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, but there is a lesser stage, that it is
20 pulling people in on the basis it is nutritious. We have
21 ronald mcdonald and the nutrients apart from anything. Is
22 it Ronald and the nutrients?
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: And other references. We have "potential
27 Olympic athletes", and so on, in the ads, and things like
28 that, when it is not good for them, the Defendants say.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: So it is not just straightforward advertising
33 to get people to come into McDonald's restaurants when the
34 food will be positively bad for their health; it is not
35 just as simple as that.
36
37 MR. RAMPTON: No. All I would say was that -- perhaps I leapt
38 in a bit too quickly -- but all I would say is this, that
39 if in the event your Lordship should decide that the proper
40 meaning to be attached to the leaflet is that the food is
41 apt to cause degenerative diseases which may be fatal,
42 then, quite honestly, time spent on determining whether the
43 advertisements are what one might call proper to attract
44 people to eat a product which is perfectly harmless is time
45 wasted.
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There are two parts to that part of the
48 leaflet which might be taken to mean that McDonald's
49 advertising draws in customers to their detriment, so far
50 as health is concerned. There are two aspects. Whether it
51 draws them in, in part, by suggesting that the food is good
52 for them, that I can see may well fall within the compass
53 of the witnesses we are hearing within this "nutrition"
54 section. The other part -- when, in fact, it is bad for
55 them -- is part of the equation under "advertising", but it
56 is not part of this section of the evidence, because that
57 evidence all comes out under "nutrition" which we have
58 partly heard.
59
60 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, that I respectfully agree, and I agree
