Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 51
1 relation to these statistics and in relation to the UK ones
2 (where the exercise would be slightly different and would
3 consist of disclosing something like for one year 400
4 accident report forms), I make that stand for this reason
5 -- there are two reasons: The first is, as I submitted to
6 your Lordship in November 1993, that I am resistant to the
7 idea of giving the Defendants ammunition (unless I have to
8 of course) for another 400, 700, 900 allegations of
9 specific injuries within the restaurants, each one which
10 would have to be tried out within the context of this case,
11 and if one crosses the Atlantic one can multiply that by
12 hundreds to get thousands. That is the first point.
13
14 The second point I made back in November 1993 was that, in
15 our submission, it was not necessary for the fair disposal
16 of the action even to have statistics. Your Lordship,
17 having accepted that submission, turned round on me more
18 recently because I had opened the case in such a way as
19 might be thought to suggest that I was saying: "Well,
20 tee-hee, the only accidents that ever happened are those
21 which the Defendants can prove". I accepted that, of
22 course, as I had to.
23
24 My Lord, in my submission, these statistics, both British
25 and American, deal with that difficulty, because what you
26 have there is the actual number of accidents graded so far
27 as possible according to severity. That is a foundation on
28 which your Lordship is able to say: "Well, here is the
29 number of accidents that happened in this year; this is the
30 number of employees employed nationwide, whether in America
31 or Britain, in that year. I can, therefore, make a
32 judgment whether the number of accidents of any gravity is
33 significant or not, significant in the sense that it
34 suggests that McDonald's are or, on the contrary, are not
35 careless of their employees' welfare".
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I did, and I have some additional evidence
38 from Mr. Atherton now as to -- I will have to look it up
39 again -- the numbers of entries which there might be in an
40 accident book which would not be RIDDOR accidents, and so
41 on.
42
43 MR. RAMPTON: There was a figure eight but I cannot remember
44 over what period of time. Your Lordship is easily able, as
45 we saw the other day when Mr. Atherton was in the witness
46 box, to calculate that the number of RIDDOR accidents per
47 year is something under one per restaurant. Let the
48 Defendants make what they can of that at the end of the
49 case. It does not help the progress of the case, indeed,
50 it would be an abuse of the process in this case, for the
51 Defendants to seek to try to hack through the detail (which
52 is what they would do) of every single accident that has
53 occurred over, let us say, a five-year period.
54
55 That is, according to the authorities of Yorkshire
56 Provident, Zuremberg and Lambishire(?) precisely the kind
57 of fishing trip which the law forbids. What matters is the
58 number of accidents and their relative gravity compared
59 with the number of employees, and when one looks at the
60 Plaintiffs' systems to see whether, effectively, they are
