Day 125 - 12 May 95 - Page 14
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That, I really cannot be concerned with.
2
3 MR. MORRIS: I know. (To the witness): But you are aware that
4 the administration, when it was looking into the
5 Jack-in-the-box incident, was considering new regulations,
6 whatever the specifics of those regulations were, to try to
7 prevent that incident happening again, that kind of
8 incident happening again?
9 A. They wanted to examine all aspects of the supply line
10 from beginning to end.
11
12 Q. But they were considering introducing regulations?
13 A. If necessary, if necessary.
14
15 Q. That is the point I am trying to make.
16 A. If necessary.
17
18 Q. OK.
19
20 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, it is not really OK. I do not know -----
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Does it really matter? I would have thought
23 the one thing any fast-food chain would fear, more than any
24 Government regulation, is that people start dying after
25 eating their food. If anything is going to bring a company
26 to its knees, it is that. Where that takes us as to
27 whether your procedures beforehand were adequate or not,
28 I would have thought is a fact of life.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: Mr. Morris may be lining himself up for a
31 suggestion to your Lordship in six months time, or so, that
32 the only reason McDonald's felt impelled to do whatever
33 they did do was because they feared the threat of
34 regulation by the government. If that is the suggestion,
35 he should put it.
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not know whether Mr. Morris will do that
38 or not.
39
40 MR. MORRIS: I certainly would put that suggestion, that the
41 reason that you increased your internal temperature of your
42 burgers was because you knew that the Government would be
43 considering regulations to force the burger chains to
44 increase their internal temperatures of their finished
45 products?
46 A. I reject that. I reject that. That is not true. Our
47 standards are the highest in the industry; were more than
48 acceptable; were beyond the parameters required by the
49 Government. Again, the reason we made various changes was
50 to ensure, to make very, very sure, that the likelihood of
51 the Jack-in-the-Box situation happening to us would be
52 greatly minimised.
53
54 MS. STEEL: If you turn to bundle page 20, internal page 197,
55 this is about milk shakes. In the bottom paragraph, in the
56 left-hand column, which is under: "Milk shake Re-run", it
57 says: "Re-run must be used early because of potential for
58 bacteria build-up. It should be used immediately following
59 the initial machine start up. Some local health
60 departments do not allow re-run to be used". Why do some
