Day 274 - 04 Jul 96 - Page 08
1 And, for instance, I will express the hope that you feel
2 able to agree the tables of nutritional content in the
3 McDonald's documents, and that Mr. Rampton, on behalf of
4 his clients, feels able to admit the table which Professor
5 Crawford produced behind his third statement. You will
6 remember the one. It had a McDonald's beef meal, a
7 McDonald's chicken meal, a homemade beef meal and a
8 homemade chicken meal. But I am not going to start
9 deciding now whether they are admissible. That is not my
10 function. Everyone must do their best to agree as many
11 documents as possible, and the best way of avoiding dispute
12 is to produce a list for agreement, as in fact Barlow Lyde
13 & Gilbert did in March.
14
15 MS. STEEL: Yes. If we, for example, the McDonald's facts with
16 the charts in the back about the nutritional content, if we
17 agreed that document being admissible, that does not mean
18 that we are agreeing to say the statements in it saying
19 McDonald's food is nutritious, does it?
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. What you want to do is just say, and
22 what I hope we can do, if it has not been done in writing,
23 is deal with large swathes of that list attached to the
24 18th March 1996 letter verbally in court on Monday morning.
25
26 I do not think it is anticipated, it is expected that you
27 will agree a statement that McDonald's food is nutritious.
28 But what is important is that such and such an item has --
29 that sodium has been reduced across the board or across the
30 menu, or whatever the phrase is. But it is important that
31 you say, if this is your frame of mind, we will agree the
32 nutritional tables in it, the figures in the tables. I am
33 perfectly prepared to do it all in one go before either
34 side agrees the other side's figures insofar as they
35 compete, say "well, I will agree this if you will agree
36 that". It is not tit for tat. It is just sense.
37
38 As you probably gathered, I have given some thought to what
39 I was going to say this morning. It has all been said
40 advisedly. I would rather not say anything more now and I
41 hope when you leave court today you can take away a
42 transcript of what has been said in court up to this moment
43 to consider.
44
45 If anyone wants to say anything shortly about what I have
46 said, certainly do so now. My main purpose is to say what
47 is on my mind before getting on with Miss Laporte's
48 evidence so a transcript can be made while she is giving
49 her evidence.
50
51 MR. MORRIS: The only thing that concerns me is our ability or
52 lack of it to do an equivalent list to identify which
53 documents the plaintiffs have missed out on their list that
54 have been treated as relevant in this case, and that I
55 would ask the court to consider after Monday if we are
56 unable to do an equivalent list in the time available,
57 which is certain from -- just physically impossible, that
58 when the actual evidence finishes.... You said you are
59 unwilling to hear evidence at the end of the calender
60 month.
