Day 086 - 09 Feb 95 - Page 47
1 I was in the stand here. I had not heard -- I had heard
2 about the Preston incident. It was known as the Preston
3 incident where until I came in here I just knew it was
4 alleged, thought, that it may have something to do with
5 McDonald's, although when I started reading through this
6 I found out that we had admitted liability for this case
7 alone. That really was the limit of my knowledge on this
8 issue.
9
10 MR. MORRIS: Just for your education, George Rummel of the
11 McDonald's Corporation in the USA has said in his statement
12 for this case, point 3 of his statement: "In 1982
13 approximately 47 people, mostly in Michigan and Oregon, not
14 all of whom had eaten at McDonald's, were found to be
15 infected with a previously unknown strain of E.coli. The
16 Centre for Disease Control performed a statistical analysis
17 of the outbreak and concluded ... (reading to the
18 words) ... as a means of settling the matter to everyone's
19 satisfaction. There was never admission of liability on
20 McDonald's part". Do you not think someone in your
21 position who is ultimately responsibility for food safety
22 matters and who is coming to court to give evidence on that
23 matter should know about these incidents and the
24 authorities' reports into them, the statutory authorities'
25 reports into them?
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Why not take them separately because there
28 may be a difference between the two. What about Oregon, do
29 you think you should have known about Oregon?
30 A. It would have been advantageous, I would have been able
31 to answer your questions a little bit better, but I do not
32 think it is necessary for me to perform my current job to
33 the best of my ability to know of this one incident. I full
34 understand all matters of food safety. I have been on an
35 advanced hygiene course, an advanced food safety course,
36 health and safety course.
37
38 I have been in the restaurant for, with the Company for 12
39 years. I have been instrumental in many of the changes
40 that have made McDonald's even a safer place to eat. If
41 you bring to my attention now just two instances throughout
42 the history of McDonald's where it may have been that some
43 people have had food poisoning incidents, then I would
44 suggest that the system that we have is very safe and the
45 measures that we take are very effective.
46
47 MR. MORRIS: Just on the subject of only two instances,
48 Mr. Rummel also admits that in 1987 that there was
49 cross-contamination from an employee into a prepared shrimp
50 salad which resulted in typhoid poisoning of customers.
51 That was in Silver Spring, Maryland.
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: Perhaps Mr. Morris ----
54
55 MR. MORRIS: Did you know that at all?
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: -- would like to read out the whole of the
58 paragraph as he did in the previous case?
59
60 MR. MORRIS: "In 1987 the local health department found an
