Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 45
1 make this my best point because I am conscious that some
2 people, including even members of the Bar, are inclined to
3 use the word "after" as though it meant "because of", this
4 is particularly true of journalists and others, but it also
5 is a vice to which lawyers are sometime prone, the first
6 thing to observe is that neither those paragraphs is, on
7 its face, an accusation that McDonald's are responsible for
8 what happened. It is an error of grammar, I suspect.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am reading it as meaning "as a result of".
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: Assuming that is the right way to read it ----
13
14 MR. MORRIS: Can I just say a legal point, is it not fair to
15 assume that all the points of justification, we are asked
16 to provide further particulars to justify a particular
17 pleading, which is basically that meat and chicken are
18 responsible for food poisoning incidents or whatever, and
19 therefore all the points of justification should be seen in
20 that context, that they are saying that the source of the
21 problem is the food poisoning from the meat or
22 whatever -----
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I thought I just said I am reading "after" as
25 meaning "as a result of".
26
27 MR. MORRIS: Yes. That would also apply to the Preston thing.
28 For example, when we pleaded it we were assuming that
29 meant, of course, that that was to justify the allegation
30 that meat is responsible for food poisoning incidents. So,
31 when the Plaintiffs make an admission, we are assuming they
32 are admitting the context in which the justification -----
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. They are admitting the specific
35 pleading. Where we go from there we will have to see. By
36 the "specific pleading" I mean the specific reference to
37 Preston or Oregon, if what Mr. Rummel says amounts to an
38 admission and so on.
39
40 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I mention that because I have had cases
41 in the past when one has found something like this so
42 tactically ambiguous or worse, and one is asked for
43 particulars, "Are you saying we were responsible?" and the
44 answer is, "No, it happened" in which case one has been
45 prompted to strike it out.
46
47 MS. STEEL: It is intended to read "as a result of".
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: I am grateful for that assurance which is why
50 I raised it because one needs to be sure. In that case, it
51 would have to be said (I will come back to Silver Spring
52 for another purpose and with another argument in due
53 course) that for that purpose it has to be accepted that
54 neither paragraph 2 nor paragraph 3 is, strictly speaking,
55 an admission that McDonald's were responsible for the
56 outbreak. Your Lordship may think, and this is what is
57 important in the context of an application for discovery,
58 that in both cases what is stated by Mr. Rummel, which is
59 the facts with some elucidation but all apart from the
60 strict admission of liability, the facts are entirely on
