Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 17


     
     1        McDonald's food is so lacking in bulk it is hardly possible
     2        to chew it.  Even their own figures show that a 'quarter
     3        pounder' is 48 per cent water.  This sort of fake food
     4        encourages over-eating, and the high sugar and sodium
     5        content can make people develop a kind of addiction - a
     6         'craving'.  That means more profit for McDonald's, but
     7        constipation, clogged arteries and heart attacks for many
     8        customers."  Again I ask the rhetorical question, in this
     9        context whose customers are those supposed to be?
    10
    11        My Lord, then, finally, the bit about the children on the
    12        next page.
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Can I pause there a moment?  Yes, it just
    15        occurs to me when I pointed out in relation to paragraph H
    16        of the pleading that it referred to high in sugar and
    17        sodium content but not fat, it is that which is alleged to
    18        lead to addiction or craving, the high in sugar and sodium,
    19        but it is not just those qualities in the food ---
    20
    21   MR. RAMPTON:  No, my Lord, that is right.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  -- which lead to heart attacks; it is not
    24        saying that.
    25
    26   MR. RAMPTON:  No.  If I may respectfully say so, that is, in our
    27        submission, the proper interpretation of the passage I have
    28        just read.  What it is saying is it is so sugary and salty,
    29        you like to eat it so much, you get addicted and then it
    30        kills you.
    31
    32   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Then the food being what it is, which means
    33        I suppose you say goes back to high in fat, sugar, animal
    34        products and salt and low in fibre, vitamins and minerals.
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, it is all under general heading:  What is so
    37        unhealthy about the food?
    38
    39   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  And then causes heart attacks.
    40
    41   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, precisely.  Then, finally, for context the
    42        passage about children starting on the next page:  "How do
    43        McDonald's deliberately exploit children?"  Remembering
    44        that, in fact, this is not a turnover page for the reader;
    45        it is part of the central part of the leaflet.  It is as
    46        the eye looks at it directly beside the column about
    47        unhealthy food.
    48
    49        My Lord, I will get a facsimile made for your Lordship
    50        because it is, in fact, quite helpful.  My Lord, might 
    51        I interpose at this stage to say what , perhaps, I should 
    52        have said at the outset:  At this stage, I am not concerned 
    53        to persuade your Lordship -- your Lordship is the tribunal
    54        of facts -- what is the true, natural and ordinary meaning
    55        of these passages.  What I am concerned to do is to invite
    56        your Lordship to say that what we propose to plead is a
    57        meaning or are meanings which the words complained of are
    58        reasonably capable of being found to bear by a jury or, in
    59        this case, by your Lordship.
    60

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