Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 43
1 unnecessary barriers to the use of these defences are
2 erected while at the same time the court is able to ensure
3 that its processes are not abused by irresponsible and
4 unsupported pleadings."
5
6 My Lord, that is precisely what we have here.
7 Your Lordship's form of the pleading is both responsible
8 and supported by some evidence in the case. Whether it
9 makes any sort of a case against McDonald's is quite
10 another question. But, as a pleading, according
11 to Neill L.J.'s criteria, it is entirely proper, as indeed
12 is the first half of paragraph 2. In its present form, the
13 second part of paragraph 2 is wholly objectionable, because
14 they are no reasonable grounds or no grounds upon which a
15 reasonable person could reasonably believe that it was a
16 true case.
17
18 My Lord, I go back then, if I may, to paragraph 1; and my
19 objection to this paragraph includes what Neill L.J. said.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think we had perhaps better take the break
22 there, because people have been speaking quite quickly and
23 it will give Miss Foot a break.
24
25 (Short Adjournment)
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, one thing I should have said about
30 paragraph 2 -- and it applies equally to paragraph 1, and
31 I will not repeat it -- is this, that looking on down the
32 road to the possible question of discovery, should any of
33 these proposed pleadings be allowed in any part -- and
34 I think I said this to your Lordship the other day --
35 before ever we agree to any discovery, we should ask
36 your Lordship for an order that the Defendants give proper
37 further and better particulars of both these pleadings.
38 I have assumed, in saying that, that the Defendants would
39 not give them voluntarily. At any rate, I would not be
40 willing to give any discovery at all, apart from that
41 which, by the good fortune of Mr. Walker's presence as a
42 witness, they already have and the help Dr. Gomez Gonzales
43 in getting that map, nothing has come from McDonald's,
44 because McDonald's did not have anything, and I would not
45 conceive of embarking upon the argument of what power we
46 (McDonald's) have to extract documents from subsidiaries or
47 suppliers until I have proper particulars of both these
48 pleadings, both of which, as I think I said to your
49 Lordship the other day, using lawyer's language, absolutely
50 scream for particulars.
51
52 My Lord, I will not say any more about that at this stage,
53 because it is not directly relevant, save in so far as it
54 may bear upon the question of how far these are proper
55 pleadings at all.
56
57 My Lord, in relation to paragraph 1, I embrace -- as,
58 indeed, is my principal ground of objection -- what
59 Neill L.J. said and which I have just read, but I ask two
60 further questions about this pleading, both of which are
