Day 115 - 06 Apr 95 - Page 56
1 of what the letters say and not the truth of what they say,
2 then, of course, I can agree with your Lordship, if they
3 are authentic documents which these very likely are. But,
4 if the Defendants seek to rely on them as evidence of what
5 was actually happening in corroboration of, for example,
6 Mr. Bruton's evidence, why, then they must call the witness
7 to say: "Yes, this is actually what happened. These were
8 the rates of loading; these were the numbers of people that
9 we used at that time".
10
11 That is what the Defendants want them for; they do not want
12 them for expressions of intention because, as expressions
13 of intention, they prove nothing about the factual
14 situation on the ground. Therefore, if they want to use
15 them as evidence of the truth of their contents as an
16 historical record of events, I may well decide that I am
17 going to serve a counter notice in which case they will
18 have to call the witness.
19
20 MS. STEEL: If I could just make an observation? Firstly, they
21 are three separate documents, as far as I am aware. I do
22 not think they are directly connected to one another.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I should unpin them then, should I?
25
26 MS. STEEL: Yes, you could do.
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Because otherwise it may look as if the ones
29 which are not ----
30
31 MS. STEEL: The other thing is Mr. Rampton complained about not
32 having time to read them. I handed them to him this
33 morning. We did have a long lunch break and he did say he
34 was a quick reader.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: He obviously has other things to read and he
37 may or not choose to read something when it is handed. Do
38 I understand what the position is? As I understand the
39 position, you can just leave the matters that you have
40 produced, these documents, which, on the face of it anyway,
41 appear to be Sun Valley documents, and remind me at some
42 stage in the future to ask Mr. Rampton whether it is
43 accepted that they are two copies of Sun Valley ----
44
45 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, it is easier than that because if I have
46 a dispute then I have to produce a notice -----
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is helpful, so they can be assumed to be
49 authentic documents unless you get a notice to the
50 contrary. All that proves in strict evidence is that the
51 documents were made. It does not actually prove the truth
52 of the statement in them. If you would like to look at the
53 26th January 1993 document, for instance, a statement which
54 you would actually like to have in evidence as evidence of
55 the truth of the statement, to give an example, you can do
56 that, something which would be important to you.
57
58 MS. STEEL: The thing is, the reason I want the Civil Evidence
59 Act Notice on this is so that they are evidence of what the
60 company was doing or planning to do.
