Day 242 - 29 Apr 96 - Page 34
1 MS. STEEL: If the Plaintiffs ----
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause a minute, please. Looking at my
4 finding on the meaning, you have the issue anyway as to
5 whether eating McDonald's food may well make your diet high
6 in fat et cetera, and then suppose you got over that
7 hurdle, suppose you established that it may make your diet
8 high in fat, you have got to look at the issue: If that is
9 so, does that bring with it the very real risk that you
10 will suffer cancer of the breast or bowl or heart disease
11 as a result?
12
13 It is really in relation to those two questions, and
14 perhaps particularly the last, but those two questions,
15 that you have to ask yourself which of the witnesses whose
16 statements we served whom we have not already called do we
17 want to call now?
18
19 Professor Crawford is coming back anyway and I have said
20 that quite apart from cross-examination by Mr. Rampton, if
21 you want to ask him any further matters in chief, the
22 meaning having now been defined before Mr. Rampton
23 cross-examines him further, then you may do so.
24
25 MS. STEEL: Okay. If we suppose that we have established that
26 eating McDonald's food can make your diet high in fat, then
27 previously the issue would have been: Could that cause
28 heart disease in their customers, in people who then had
29 the high fat diet who were customers of theirs?
30
31 Your meaning has to come within that and that was the part
32 that was admitted. Your meaning must come within that and,
33 therefore, very real risk must be admitted.
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It was not admitted. It was not admitted
36 that a McDonald's diet causes heart disease.
37
38 MS. STEEL: No. You are saying that suppose we establish that
39 McDonald's food makes someone's diet high in fat and that
40 now the current situation is that we then have to establish
41 that that brings a very real risk that you suffer heart
42 disease as a result.
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What was on the McDonald's pleading was:
45 Suppose that it does make your diet high in fat, then does
46 it cause heart disease or some lesser meaning, and the
47 lesser meaning, in my judgment as it is which I find, was
48 very real risk that you will suffer heart disease?
49
50 MS. STEEL: Yes.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: So, the question now, the defined meaning, is
53 assuming for the purposes of posing the question, assuming
54 that eating McDonald's food may very well make your diet
55 high in fat, does make your diet high in fat, assuming that
56 for the purposes of the question, does that carry with it
57 the very real risk that you will suffer heart disease as a
58 result and I certainly do not think McDonald's have
59 admitted that because one of their main points is there is
60 a big difference, they say, between an epidemiological
