Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 26


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  My question is: why miss out chicken; why not
     2        just say food products?
     3
     4   MR. RAMPTON:  I do not know.  If I may say so -----
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The suggested meaning which I have just read
     7        out from a note of my own might be thought to be the same
     8        as (K) and (M) taken together.
     9
    10   MR. RAMPTON:  That is right.  I was just going to say that.
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Except for the omission of chicken or
    13        non-hamburger products.
    14
    15   MR. RAMPTON:  It can only have been a slip of the pen.  It must
    16        be a slip of the pen, simply because (K), if there were an
    17        intention to exclude chickens because of some fear about
    18        salmonella cases, then (K) would not have been worded in
    19        the way that it is.  They must obviously be read together,
    20        those two.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  So, it is not an advised choice because you
    23        seek in any way to exclude from the forum evidence about
    24        the possible adverse effects, of eating chicken meat, or
    25        anything of that kind?
    26
    27   MR. RAMPTON:  Anyway, although that is a slip of the pen, the
    28        person who pleaded this is a very experienced defamation
    29        practitioner, and he knew perfectly well that he could not
    30        exclude chickens unless he made an admission, just by
    31        referring to hamburgers, particularly at (K).
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Chicken comes in, very obviously, even though
    34        only "hamburger" is referred to.
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:  It walks straight in through the door of
    37        justification of the sting.  Unless, as I say, a timely
    38        admission had been made that chicken is a very risky thing
    39        to eat in a restaurant, it would come in anyway.  Children
    40        eat more chicken than hamburgers, I would guess.
    41
    42   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  So, if the situation at the end of the day is
    43        that the Defendants could not justify the sting of any
    44        defamatory statement in respect of food poisoning, via the
    45        hamburger route, but they could via the chicken route, that
    46        would be good enough.
    47
    48   MR. RAMPTON:  I would say that it would be a substantial
    49        justification, yes.  If they met your Lordship's meaning
    50        via the route of chicken or hamburgers -- it would not 
    51        matter which, really -- then I would accept that that was 
    52        very nearly true. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That is another way of expressing
    55        justification in substance and fact, is it -- very nearly
    56        true?
    57
    58   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes.  That is exactly why those old words were
    59        used, because there had developed at one time, towards the
    60        end of the 18th Century, beginning of the 19th, a tendency

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