Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 56


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Do you want to go over until the morning?
     2
     3   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  There were a couple of the things I would
     4        like it say first if that is possible.
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
     7
     8   MR. MORRIS:  The first thing I want to say is that we feel there
     9        are some very important issues at stake here.  We are
    10        seeking the protection of the court in this, because we do
    11        not feel that Mr. Rampton has accurately described what the
    12        issues are.  We do not feel necessarily capable of taking
    13        up every gauntlet and following every hare that he has let
    14        loose today.  We certainly have not been able to cover
    15        every point in our skeleton.  We will not be able to check
    16        every reference tonight.  If we were to check every
    17        reference we would not necessarily be able to get on top of
    18        it or whatever.
    19
    20        That is the first point I would like to make.  The second
    21        point I would like to make is that, with all respect to
    22        Mr. Rampton who is obviously doing his job, we feel a
    23        gigantic con is being perpetrated in this legal argument
    24        over an important part of the case following what we see as
    25        the virtual collapse of the Plaintiffs' case following
    26        certainly their evidence and then our witnesses' evidence.
    27        It has been turned into a legal argument as a smoke screen
    28        over the actual evidence that has been given.
    29
    30        The impression given by Mr. Rampton has been that the
    31        Defendants do not know what they are doing, and it is only
    32        the brilliant clarity of the Plaintiffs' explanation of
    33        what the case is about, backed up by the judge, that has
    34        really focused on what the real issues are.  We completely
    35        disagree.  We have focused on the real issue continuously,
    36        consistently, and our case has been very clearly pleaded
    37        (going to the last point) relating absolutely closely to
    38        what it actually says in the fact sheet.
    39
    40        I am not going to go into detail now; obviously that will
    41        be dealt with tomorrow.  In fact the schoolboy howlers
    42        which have been suggested by the Plaintiffs have all been
    43        made by the Plaintiffs in confusing diet and specific
    44        products and in terms of confusing the words "link" and
    45        "cause".  In fact, the Plaintiffs have had some difficulty
    46        which we can see not only in the way the evidence has gone
    47        but in the admissions in their pleadings, and evidence of
    48        that is their attempt to amend their Statement of Claim.
    49
    50        It is our opinion, and we will go into the detail tomorrow, 
    51        that this so-called clarification is that we have been 
    52        entitled to defend our case based upon what they have 
    53        stated in the Statement of Claim and, as Mr. Rampton quite
    54        rightly said, there was no obligation on us to have
    55        defended a higher meaning than the one which they
    56        originally pleaded in their Statement of Claim.
    57
    58        It is quite clear that we have been also quite consistent
    59        in looking at the word "link" in the many ways in which it
    60        can be interpreted, including "cause" to some extent,

Prev Next Index