Day 053 - 22 Nov 94 - Page 18
1
2 To me, there is quite obviously a difference between those
3 two things, and there is in what the Plaintiffs are
4 amending their pleadings to.
5
6 Can I ask for a five-minute break?
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
9
10 (Short Adjournment)
11
12 MR. MORRIS: Just to make a final point on meanings, on the
13 meaning of F1, I think that it would be helpful if
14 Mr. Rampton explained what he meant about the meals aspect
15 of the change of the amendment. If, as it says, he is now
16 saying that "if you eat McDonald's food you will get
17 cancer", or "eating a McDonald's meal is apt to kill you",
18 then that is clearly a complete change in the meaning of
19 where it talks about "contents" in F, which has to be read
20 after the previous phrase about the nutritional value of
21 the food they sell -- "are deliberately misleading the
22 public as to the nutritional value of the food they sell
23 when they know full well that the contents are linked with"
24 -- it is talking about nutritional contents.
25
26 I think that if Mr. Rampton means someone has cancer or
27 heart disease from eating McDonald's food specifically,
28 then it is a completely implausible understanding of the
29 leaflet and hence should not be allowed, in any event -- or
30 "people are going to get cancer or heart disease from
31 eating McDonald's food".
32
33 MS. STEEL: I do not know if there is anything else you wanted
34 to know about meaning?
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. Am I to take it from what you said
37 (because I did not put it to you, I put it to Mr. Morris
38 while he was on his feet) that where you do use the
39 words "linked with" in your plea of justification, or "the
40 links between" or "a relationship between", that is to
41 include all the possible kinds of links ---
42
43 MS. STEEL: Yes.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- or relationships?
46
47 MS. STEEL: The main point is that any type of link would
48 apply.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Whether causal or something more remote?
51
52 MS. STEEL: Causal would be one type of link. Where it says "do
53 not make clear the links between", we are saying any link,
54 that there is a link, not every different sort of link that
55 there is.
56
57 As I say, I think this was almost certainly taken from
58 scientific journals, and so used in the same way that the
59 scientific journals were using the word "link" and in the
60 same way that McDonald's pamphlet uses the word
