Day 283 - 21 Oct 96 - Page 40
1 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Now, I do not say any more. I have sort of
4 trailed my coat so everyone-----
5
6 MR. MORRIS: We had just got to the point where we were
7 beginning to think how to split facts and comment. I had
8 not been aware of that point at all.
9
10 MR JUSTICE BELL: It is just as well I mentioned it now. Put it
11 on one side now, carry on with what you want to tell me
12 about. At the end of the day the simplest approach may be
13 to just look at what is said and say, would an ordinary
14 reader treat that as comment, or primarily think of it as a
15 statement of fact? You have got to be aware of -- I will
16 use another phrase of yours -- what might be a hidden
17 agenda so far as these considerations are concerned.
18 Anyway, there we are. Carry on. Pick up, I interrupted
19 you, where you were.
20
21 MR. MORRIS: It was a very useful digression. We say that the
22 plaintiffs have to do the same job in proving that the fact
23 sheet is untrue and to show how it has been proven to be
24 untrue and that we knew it was untrue if they are going to
25 succeed with their counterclaim. Sorry, if they are going
26 to defend themselves effectively against our counterclaim.
27
28 Now, I have dealt with the some of the contents of the fact
29 sheet anyway, and I will leave meanings until we do each
30 section in more detail. Especially now after that last
31 discussion, we need to have a proper discussion about that,
32 Helen and myself. But if I can just throw a bit of a
33 spanner into the meanings submissions, we also have the
34 plaintiffs' opinion on what the meanings are in their press
35 release that we have counterclaimed against and it may be
36 thought helpful, because that is out of their own mouths to
37 the public, not drawn up for legal advantage but actually
38 stated to the public, stated publicly, and it says that
39 they are lies.
40
41 Before we just go through what some of the witnesses have
42 stated, which I am going to start doing today, some of the
43 evidence, a look at the witnesses that have appeared in
44 this case we would say -- although they all have to be
45 dealt with one by one in many respects -- the general trend
46 was in terms of McDonald's witnesses, apart from some --
47 I do not think any of the experts were completely
48 independent, some of them, if not all, had had contracts
49 with McDonald's, therefore there was a commercial
50 relationship, whether in the past, present or future. That
51 should be -- may be with the exception of Dr. Arnott, I do
52 not know about the others, but anyway, it struck me that
53 most of the so-called experts, most of the experts called
54 by the plaintiffs, had some commercial relationship at some
55 time with McDonald's.
56
57 Secondly, I think all the other witnesses certainly,
58 virtually all of them, and I am just doing this on my feet
59 now, were officials of McDonald's in one way or another.
60 From low level management all the way up to board of
