Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 07
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2 MS. STEEL: Volume 1 -- is it 1?
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4 MR. RAMPTON: Volume 1. There is an old Volume 1. I am sure it
5 will be the same.
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7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It will be the same, I think. (Handed)
8 Thank you.
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10 MR. RAMPTON: It is on page 490, my Lord.
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12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
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14 MR. MORRIS: We are trying to find the page.
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16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
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18 MR. MORRIS: In the light of that, we would submit that -----
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20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Wait a minute. Mr. Rampton has not finished
21 his submissions.
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23 MR. MORRIS: OK.
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25 MR. RAMPTON: All I would say is that it recommends precisely
26 what your Lordship said a moment ago. If I want to rely on
27 the Defendants' answers to interrogatories by way of
28 admissions against interest-- which, to some limited
29 extent, I do -- then they become evidence in the case.
30 Your Lordship is entitled to look at the whole of the
31 answer, of course -- or, indeed, I would say it looks as
32 though your Lordship can look at the whole of the answers
33 to the interrogatories -- and make an assessment whether or
34 not to accept the evidence. As the note shows at the
35 bottom of the rule, then it becomes part of the evidence in
36 the case.
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38 MS. STEEL: If I could just ask a legal question? This
39 says: "A party may put in evidence at the trial some or any
40 of the answers to interrogatories." They have not actually
41 made any application during the course of this trial, and
42 you did actually say that the evidence was closed. I do
43 not mind whether or not they go in, provided the whole lot
44 go in. So, I am not too bothered. But I do not think that
45 the Plaintiffs should at this stage, after the evidence has
46 been closed, be able to pick and choose which ones they now
47 want to rely on, when they have not specifically stated
48 that at a time when we could deal with it.
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50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are they going in as evidence at all? They
51 are going in not as evidence of the truth of the answer,
52 which is surely what Order 26, Rule 7 is?
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54 MR. RAMPTON: If Mr. Morris swears an affidavit in answer to
55 interrogatories and says that he was at the 1989
56 anti-McDonald's fair all day, that is evidence that he was.
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58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It can be put in under this as evidence that
59 it was, and then one can look to see whether others should
60 go in.
