Day 189 - 20 Nov 95 - Page 43
1 It is only that last document does contain a very great
2 deal of, not only hearsay by her, but material contributed
3 by other persons. It is really a matter for your Lordship
4 how best Mr. Morris and Ms. Steel should be encouraged to
5 deal with that problem when Miss Lamb comes to give
6 evidence. I do not really want to go through it now and I
7 am sure your Lordship does not either.
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I would rather not if only because I have not
10 reread -- I reread Miss Lamb's statement but I have not
11 read the whole of that which comes afterwards for some
12 time.
13
14 MR. RAMPTON: Your Lordship will see that, besides the
15 solicitor, Mr. Jeffrey Grimes, there is Miss lamb,
16 Mr. Siamak Alimi and this gentleman, Steve Percy, I think
17 his name is, who contribute to that meeting in different
18 ways. Plainly, one cannot have the whole thing read out
19 because most of what is in it it turns out does not come
20 from Miss Lamb at all; it comes from the other two.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: One of the people she interviewed was an
23 Assistant Manager.
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: Quite. I had not really given that any thought.
26 That may, as in other cases, merely affect its weight.
27 There is a recent case in the Privy Council -- I will tell
28 your Lordship the name of it now -- which deals with the
29 question of what is to be attributed to a Company which
30 might in due course be of some importance in this case.
31 The name of the case is Meridian Global Funds Management
32 (Asia) Limited v. The Securities Commission. It is a New
33 Zealand case. It is reported in part 31 of this year's
34 Weekly Law Reports. The reference is 1995, 3 W.L.R. 413.
35
36 I think the opinion of their Lordships is delivered by Lord
37 Hoffmann. It is a penetrating analysis of what one might
38 call the principle of directing will or directing mind so
39 far as companies are concerned.
40
41 My Lord, also in this context where admissions may or may
42 not be attributable to the Company, paragraph 24-45 of the
43 latest edition of Phipson headed "Corporations and their
44 Officers". There is rather a lot of old learning in that.
45
46 Rather than taking objection at this stage to particular
47 attributions, your Lordship may think it more convenient
48 if, at the end of the evidence, because there is an
49 enormous amount of hearsay gone in anyway, whether
50 legitimately or not, I direct your Lordship to what
51 I believe to be the relevant principles where statements
52 made by McDonald's employees are concerned.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think I would be greatly helped by you
55 doing that in due course because, quite apart from the
56 occasions where it has been raised, while a witness is in
57 the witness box, there are obviously a number of other
58 occasions where witnesses on both sides have delivered
59 themselves of hearsay evidence. This point, obviously,
60 only relates to evidence which the Defendants have led
