Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 58
1 and a half years wherein McDonald's have been defending
2 themselves, well, in fact, they have been prosecuting us.
3 But, in effect, they have been defending themselves because
4 they have chosen to. Therefore, that removes what little
5 argument they had that before trial they might have needed
6 to put out some document, which we say has absolutely no
7 weight whatsoever. But, in any case, they are still
8 circulating this document and we have complained about it
9 as a particular.....
10
11 To save time, the first day of our closing speeches,
12 I actually spent some substantial time going through how on
13 each issue in the fact sheet and in the case we were
14 relying on, and had been relying on and had been aware of,
15 material emanating from authoritative sources, including
16 the Plaintiffs themselves, so that there is absolutely no
17 way that those matters could be described as lies because
18 -- well, I just demonstrated that none of the material,
19 the issues in this case, none of our points we are
20 defending could possibly be described as lies. I mean,
21 they may at the end of day be shown to be true or untrue --
22 sorry, not true or untrue, but proven or not proven. But
23 McDonald's, as we have said, has to prove positively that
24 they are untrue and that we knew they were untrue. And
25 that is completely impossible, as I demonstrated. If I can
26 just refer you to that first day -----
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have a good note of that and I have the
29 transcript of it now, anyway.
30
31 MR. MORRIS: That is good.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I remember you referring to your witnesses
34 and their status, and so on.
35
36 MR. MORRIS: Yes, and McDonald's own evidence and -----
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have all of that well in mind.
39
40 MR. MORRIS: Yes. That applies to not just to the words in the
41 fact sheet, but also to the words in the press release
42 specifically where it says what they considered to be lies,
43 what McDonald's considers to be lies on page 2 of the press
44 release, that McDonald's has to show how those points have
45 been positively proven by them to be untrue and they have
46 positively got evidence that we knew they were untrue; for
47 example, damaging the ozone layer, or whatever. Do not
48 forget that we, effectively -- well, it is not enough again
49 that we may not have proven every word in our pleadings, in
50 our particulars, because, for example, McDonald's would
51 have had to have proven, say, for example, on "destroys
52 rainforests", they would have had to have proven the
53 sources of their supplies in all countries where they get,
54 which have rainforests, they would have had to have proven
55 the sources of their supplies and shown that they were not
56 on ex-rainforest land, not just in Central America and
57 South America but Malaysia and other countries as well or,
58 indeed, Australia or anywhere else that has rainforests.
59 Of course, that was not done in the case, so that cannot be
60 proven to be a lie.
