Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 52


     
     1        genuine about wanting to preserve the health and safety of
     2        their employees.
     3
     4        My Lord, I do not think I need say anything more about
     5        that.  I should add this, that such accident books as
     6        relate to incidents specifically pleaded by the Defendants
     7        and as still exist have all been disclosed.
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Could you just give me a picture of what they
    10        cover?  Is it the particular page from an accident book?
    11
    12   MR. RAMPTON:  Sometimes it is.  In the case of the Colchester
    13        store -- I really am speaking from the depths of my memory
    14        now because it is six months or more since I looked at it
    15         -- much more than that has been disclosed because there is
    16        a specific allegation by one of the Defendants' witnesses
    17        that accidents were very frequent and not recorded, or
    18        something along those lines.  It happened that the
    19        Colchester accident book was still in existence.  We,
    20        therefore, disclosed the whole thing.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That is copied somewhere, is it?
    23
    24   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, I cannot remember where, but I will give your
    25        Lordship the reference.  That is because the Defendants
    26        made a specific allegation and, therefore, the discovery is
    27        in accordance with Yorkshire Provident -- volume pink XIII,
    28        57L, my Lord.  That is one of the old pieces of discovery
    29        and it has been there for sometime.
    30
    31   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Thank you.
    32
    33   MR. RAMPTON:  I do not know if it helps if at this stage I might
    34        just remind your Lordship, not by referring to the book but
    35        to what I conceive to have been the effect of Yorkshire
    36        Provident?  If you are able to plead ten instances,
    37        specific instances, of fraud to support a general charge of
    38        fraud, then your right to discovery is confined to those
    39        ten instances; you are not entitled to discovery to see
    40        whether you can find other instances.  My Lord, that has
    41        been the law of this country since 1895 and has never been
    42        doubted by anybody.
    43
    44        Mr. Ray Cesca's soya, I believe, I have dealt with.  The
    45        PHLS report.
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You really rely upon the statement being
    48        sufficient?  That is what it boils down to.
    49
    50   MR. RAMPTON:  I rely on two things. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Quite apart from the power point. 
    53
    54   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, quite apart from the power point.  Again,
    55        this is an issue of almost idiotic insignificance in the
    56        context of the case for two reasons:  First, because soya
    57        has, as Mr. Morris might say, "damn all" to do with the
    58        pamphlet; secondly, more particularly, because the actual
    59        amounts involved are insignificant and the sources of the
    60        soya have nothing whatever to do with rainforests.

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