Day 057 - 29 Nov 94 - Page 16
1 MR. RAMPTON: Page 13, my Lord.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- "causally" was inserted between the words
4 "are" and "linked" in the original pleading, what, if
5 anything, would be the difference between F as it is in the
6 pleading at the moment and F in your amendment? What would
7 be the differences in substance, if any?
8
9 MR. RAMPTON: As between that and F1, none. With respect to the
10 original pleader, it would have been a somewhat clumsier
11 way of saying the same thing.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: With the greatest respect to the learned
14 pleader, it might be thought to have been put in a slightly
15 convoluted way and it got round to the links with cancer
16 and the breast and bowel and heart disease after the
17 misleading when you say your main complaint is about
18 causation of those things at all, and then misleading
19 people who read the promotional matter comes second, as it
20 were.
21
22 MR. RAMPTON: I hope that makes sense.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Whereas the pleader put the second one first.
25
26 MR. RAMPTON: To be fair to him, that is no doubt because he
27 followed the scheme of the leaflet. What I have done is to
28 follow what I take to be the likely reaction of the reader
29 in descending order of gravity: "Goodness me, this stuff
30 is apt to give you cancer or cause you cancer of the
31 breast", and so on and so forth, "and, what is more, that
32 is an accepted medical fact and, what is more, the
33 Plaintiffs do not tell anybody about it".
34
35 It seems to me those last two allegations do not add very
36 much to the assertion that the food is probably going to
37 kill you in the mind of the reader. So far as damage to
38 McDonald's reputation and business is concerned, it is the
39 first one which is the one that matters.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have heard what Ms. Steel said about the
42 different meaning anyway, even if you put "causally" before
43 "linked", but you would say there is no difference of
44 substance, "causally" was in before -----
45
46 MR. RAMPTON: With respect, my Lord, certainly as a matter of
47 logic, it cannot be otherwise; the only way in which you
48 can causally link the contents of an average McDonald's
49 meal, that is to say, hamburger, chips and milk shake, the
50 only way you can link that meal or its contents (which is
51 the same thing because the contents are what you eat) with
52 cancers and heart disease is if it actually causes them;
53 the only difference being that instead of using the plural
54 "meals", the pleader has used the words "the contents of
55 an average McDonald's meal". The only lack of clarity --
56 as your Lordship says, it is a bit convoluted -- is the
57 omission of the word "causally".
58
59 May I pass then briefly to 4L? I will not respond to the
60 suggestion that at my great age when I open the case I put
