Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 39


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not think it is as simple as that.
     3        Sticking to this document, whatever may be said about
     4        another document, for instance, the Operations Manual,
     5        I find it difficult to see that you can just take parts of
     6        these documents and say "we rely on those, they are an
     7        admission against interest by McDonald's", which
     8        I certainly do not see them as, "but McDonald's cannot rely
     9        on any other parts of them".  I must say, I have difficulty
    10        with that.
    11
    12   MR. MORRIS:  The thing is, there are so many thousands of
    13        documents in this case.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I appreciate that, all I am giving you is an
    16        opportunity.  I have put 'query this' in pencil on my part
    17        of it because I wanted to sort it out.  I do not care what
    18        the result is at the end of the day.
    19
    20   MS. STEEL:  Do they still have the letter?  It might be
    21        helpful.  Can I say something about the point that you have
    22        just made?  The reason why it is different, whether or not
    23        whether or not we can rely on them, is because in theory
    24        McDonald's could create a whole load of documents just to,
    25        sort of, help prove this case, so they should not
    26        automatically be able to rely on what is in their own
    27        documents, whereas if it is something that is in our favour
    28        then, you know, presumably they would not create things in
    29        our favour for the purposes of the case.  So-----
    30
    31   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I understand that, that is why I made the
    32        rider about whatever may be said about the Operations
    33        Manual.  I see that, but there may be parts there which you
    34        say, 'We are entitled to rely on because McDonald's would
    35        not have said that.  Since now we are looking at it through
    36        the eyes of this defamation case, how ever the author was
    37        looking at it when he or she wrote it, we can rely upon it
    38        as a concession against themselves and there they were when
    39        whoever wrote that they wrote it without any consideration
    40        of a defamation action like this, and it was the truth and
    41        now we want to hold it against them'.  I have no problem
    42        with that.
    43
    44        The problem I have with pink 7 and 12 is that the
    45        information which appears on it, page after page, gives a
    46        picture as a whole, and what seems to me to be unreal is to
    47        say, 'You can take that into account because it helps us
    48        against McDonald's' -- you may not be saying this -- 'but
    49        you cannot take what is on the rest of the page into
    50        account because it might help McDonald's.'  I have to----- 
    51 
    52   MS. STEEL:  I do not think anyone is saying that about this 
    53        specific document.  I am not.
    54
    55   MR. MORRIS:  I do not remember us not agreeing.
    56
    57   MS. STEEL:   I thought it might be a mistake.
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What I would like you to do, I am not going
    60        to bundle you into a decision right now, but some time

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