Day 145 - 29 Jun 95 - Page 56


     
     1        after all the evidence has been heard as part of a total
     2        reasoned judgment but ------
     3
     4   MR. MORRIS:  It would be a legal matter.  I mean, we obviously
     5        were hoping to get some advice on it today, if we can, but
     6        I think you can rest assured the thrust of it will be a
     7        legal point rather than weighing up the evidence that has
     8        been heard.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  However that may be, and obviously I will
    11        listen to whatever you want to say in relation to that,
    12        what I would like you, Ms. Steel and Mr. Rampton,
    13        Mr. Atkinson and Mrs. Brinley-Codd to think about -- you
    14        need not reach a decision next week but we can discuss it a
    15        little further next week, if you like -- is the question of
    16        what the meaning actually is in relation to nutrition,
    17        because I did express the view that I did not want to
    18        decide what the meaning was as a preliminary point, as it
    19        were, some weeks or months ago.  The main reason for that
    20        was I did not want to decide it prematurely, only for you
    21        later in the day to think of an argument which you had not
    22        actually put.
    23
    24        I am prepared to reconsider that if -----
    25
    26   MR. MORRIS:  I did not quite catch the meaning of that last
    27        bit?
    28
    29   MS. STEEL:  Do you mean you wanted us to give a meaning, because
    30        I know this was asked before and I actually read one out.
    31
    32   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, that is not what I am on at the moment.
    33        I did ask you to say what the meaning was and you gave me
    34        an answer in relation to that.  What had been raised -- not
    35        in any formal way, I do not think -- was the question of
    36        whether I should decide what the meaning actually was, not
    37        what it was capable of meaning, which is all I had to
    38        decide in relation to Mr. Rampton's application to amend,
    39        whether the leaflet was capable of bearing the meaning set
    40        out in the proposed amendment, but actually what the
    41        meaning was.
    42
    43        In other words, what I decided was what the judge would
    44        decide if he was sitting with a jury, is it capable of
    45        bearing that meaning?  What I did not go on to decide in my
    46        jury role, as it were, was what it actually means.  One of
    47        the reasons (and, as I said a moment ago I think it was the
    48        main reason) why I was disinclined to decide that there and
    49        then, rather than when we had heard all the evidence and at
    50        the end of the case, was I did not want to hear argument 
    51        from you on what the actual meaning was, decide what it was 
    52        and then have you say at the end of the case:  "By the way, 
    53        we have thought of an extra argument we would like to put
    54        on what the actual meaning was".  In other words, I was
    55        giving you the opportunity to wait right until the last
    56        minute before you developed your whole argument on it.
    57
    58        All I am saying now is, if it was agreed between all the
    59        parties that it would be beneficial to decide what the
    60        meaning is before any of the nutrition witnesses are

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