Day 128 - 24 May 95 - Page 60


     
     1        with the second question.  We have just got relevance first
     2        of all now.  You may be right, you may be wrong about
     3        relevance, but can you really say -- for all I know, you
     4        have seen them all and read them all, and Mr. Atkinson has,
     5        or Mrs. Brinley-Codd has and has not informed you, but
     6        unless that has actually taken place, we cannot argue. I
     7        mean, you actually saw it or Mr. Atkinson -----
     8
     9   MR. RAMPTON:  No, I have not seen it.  I do not know whether
    10        Mr. Atkinson has or not.  No, he has not.
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  For all I know, when you looked at them you
    13        would say:  "Yes, this is relevant, and they ought to
    14        be" -----
    15
    16   MR. RAMPTON:  I might do.  At the moment I rather doubt it
    17        because I am disinclined to suppose that McDonald's, as it
    18        were, apart from in general terms, but general
    19        documentation about health and safety is relevant, for the
    20        reasons that there is a Defence to be made out -- The
    21        Defence is set out in the abstract of the pleading and does
    22        not, so far as I can tell, make an allegation that
    23        McDonald's are overall, what one might call, "careless" of
    24        the health and safety of their own employees.
    25
    26        What it does say is that people were in a poor environment
    27        which is often dangerous. That is a generality which, as
    28        I think I have submitted to your Lordship before in the
    29        past, I have always taken to be qualified by the particular
    30        matters pleaded in the Defence.  The discovery actually, it
    31        is right to say, has exceeded that somewhat correct, if one
    32        likes, but rather somewhat narrow view of the pleaded
    33        issues in that there are, for example, disclosed things
    34        like the HSE report.  I do not know why that was
    35        disclosed.  It is not part of this case, but there it is.
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  This is a matter which crosses my mind.
    38        There is an argument (and I am not offering any comment on
    39        whether it would succeed or not) that health and safety is
    40        really not relevant to the allegations in the leaflet at
    41        all.  The way it could be said it is, is that there is a
    42        reference to the conditions under which people work, and
    43        therefore one could say:  "Well, health and safety is
    44        relevant to that risk of suffering injury, and McDonald's
    45        attitude, whether they care whether their employes are at
    46        risk or not", but in a sense I do not have to worry my head
    47        about that or, at least, I have not done, because there has
    48        been a pleading in relation to health and safety.
    49
    50   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  And your clients, between you and your 
    53        instructing solicitors, have been prepared to take up the
    54        cudgels on their behalf, in that area.  That is the first
    55        stage.  The second stage is it has not been restricted to
    56        1989 or 1990 because we have had a lot of evidence as to
    57        what has happened since.  We have had discovery as to which
    58        has happened since.
    59
    60        As recently as the beginning of this week, we had discovery

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