Day 057 - 29 Nov 94 - Page 08


     
     1        because of its nutritional content.
     2
     3        The further extension of the Plaintiffs' case that we
     4        should have to prove -- I mean, McDonald's also promote
     5        that kind of diet and, therefore, they share responsibility
     6        because of the one billion dollars or more they spend
     7        promoting that kind of diet through the promotion of that
     8        kind of food as desirable.
     9
    10        So, the fact that it is not possible to say that if someone
    11        eats a McDonald's meal they could get cancer from eating at
    12        McDonald's or heart disease, we do not think it is possible
    13        to read that into that.  If it is possible to read that
    14        into that, which we do not agree, it is definitely not the
    15        meaning that is the natural and ordinary meaning of that
    16        text.
    17
    18        In fact, it is a completely ludicrous meaning and that is
    19        why, of course, it has been raised by the Plaintiffs,
    20        because they are not putting up a clarification of their
    21        original alleged defamatory meaning.  They are, in fact,
    22        trying to make the case difficult, if not impossible, for
    23        the Defendants precisely because of the weakness of their
    24        own case on this subject.
    25
    26   MS. STEEL:  I think in your judgment that you had made it clear
    27        that you thought, I think at a previous hearing, that it
    28        was "cause".  I referred you to -----
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, I do not think I said "I made it clear".
    31        I said that it probably appears from the words I used that
    32        that was how I was interpreting "link".  They are not the
    33        same thing.
    34
    35   MS. STEEL:  There are two things out of that.  I have said just
    36        now that whether or not you assumed it was causal does not
    37        mean that we do.  The other point was the one that I made
    38        last week, about things that Mr. Rampton says getting into
    39        judgments, and that we cannot necessarily follow everything
    40        that is said by Mr. Rampton and in judgments and treat that
    41        as exactly what we are having to prove.
    42
    43        The way the Plaintiffs have brought this case at previous
    44        hearings and continuously into the trial has been extremely
    45        confusing and they have not at all been clear.  When we
    46        were talking about unsaturated fat the other day, there is
    47        also the fact that at that hearing Mr. Rampton denied that
    48        there was any respectable body that thought that there was
    49        a relationship between total fat and heart disease.  Now
    50        they have conceded that in the letter.  When they wrote to 
    51        us saying that they did not think we should call Professor 
    52        Crawford and Richard Brown, they referred to just "fat" 
    53        there, they did not refer to "saturated fat".  The total
    54        fat issue was the reason that we were still intending to
    55        call Mr. Brown and Mr. Crawford, and also because there was
    56        cancer anyway with Mr. Crawford, but the total fat was the
    57        reason that we were still intending to call them in
    58        relation to heart disease.  We would have argued that had
    59        it come to the argument but, as you know, it did not come
    60        to argument.  But, it is in their letter and the way they

Prev Next Index