Day 163 - 25 Sep 95 - Page 44


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  If you make an enquiry and decide to make an
     2        admission in respect of one of these allegations, supposing
     3        I gave leave to amend, then you would have the choice to
     4        leave it there and say it is a drop in the ocean or, if you
     5        thought there was some innocent explanation for real
     6        mitigation, whether it was worth calling any evidence to
     7        that effect, if there was documentation then you might be
     8        under an obligation to disclose, supposing it is in your
     9        possession, custody or power and supposing it was
    10        documentation which what was relevant.  On the other hand,
    11        for all I know, and I am talking about employment
    12        conditions now, not the hygiene, a fairly short enquiry
    13        would find what the situation was in relation to the
    14        allegation, discover whether, (and I notice a number of
    15        these things are five or so years ago) there was any
    16        documentation to be discovered at all.
    17
    18   MR. RAMPTON:  Sometimes there is; sometimes there is not.  That
    19        is the trouble.  If I had had these amendments, let us say,
    20        at the beginning of August because it happens
    21        Mrs. Brinley-Codd and I have just been to Chicago to see
    22        our clients off on holiday, if we had these proposed
    23        amendments, say, at the beginning of the middle of August,
    24        maybe I would now be in a position to say to your Lordship
    25        that your Lordship does not need to worry about these, they
    26        are all admitted or they are not worth the paper they are
    27        written on and we can deal it all by a dozen documents.
    28
    29        The trouble is at the moment in the light of this
    30        application I have absolutely no idea.  What I do know is
    31        that it is very unlikely, I mean this is my own view, that
    32        my clients will be disposed to admit any significant
    33        proportion of these, for the reason that in the generality
    34        of cases, as in the Macally case, what happens is, oh, yes,
    35        all right, the event happened, but so far as justification
    36        of a libel on McDonald's Corporation is concerned, the
    37        matter does not stop there because the question which the
    38        court has to answer, in our respectful submission, is first
    39        of all what degree of responsibility can the Corporation be
    40        said to have for what happened; second, it having had, what
    41        steps could the Corporation take to ensure that it did not
    42        happen again?
    43
    44        As far as I know, every single one of these cases may fall
    45        into that category.  If that were so, the possibility of my
    46        being instructed to admit them is quite naturally
    47        non-existent because a "yes, but" is not an admission.
    48
    49        I do not say, and could not I think say, that if the
    50        Defendants had recently come upon (I emphasise the word 
    51        "recently") a piece of paper from Head Office in Oak Brook 
    52        which said, for example, and this is sheer fantasy, "What 
    53        are we going to do with all those rain forest trees from
    54        Costa Rica?  Shall we cut them down now for grazing land or
    55        wait a bit?" that I could sensibly resist an amendment.
    56
    57        My Lord, given the amount of evidence your Lordship already
    58        has on employment, given if one stands back from these
    59        allegations and looks to see what their effect truly is,
    60        given what that might add, assuming they were all proved to

Prev Next Index