Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 07


     
     1
     2   MS. STEEL:   Volume 1 -- is it 1?
     3
     4   MR. RAMPTON:  Volume 1.  There is an old Volume 1.  I am sure it
     5        will be the same.
     6
     7   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It will be the same, I think.  (Handed)
     8        Thank you.
     9
    10   MR. RAMPTON:  It is on page 490, my Lord.
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
    13
    14   MR. MORRIS:  We are trying to find the page.
    15
    16   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
    17
    18   MR. MORRIS:  In the light of that, we would submit that -----
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Wait a minute.  Mr. Rampton has not finished
    21        his submissions.
    22
    23   MR. MORRIS:  OK.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  All I would say is that it recommends precisely
    26        what your Lordship said a moment ago.  If I want to rely on
    27        the Defendants' answers to interrogatories by way of
    28        admissions against interest-- which, to some limited
    29        extent, I do -- then they become evidence in the case.
    30        Your Lordship is entitled to look at the whole of the
    31        answer, of course -- or, indeed, I would say it looks as
    32        though your Lordship can look at the whole of the answers
    33        to the interrogatories -- and make an assessment whether or
    34        not to accept the evidence.  As the note shows at the
    35        bottom of the rule, then it becomes part of the evidence in
    36        the case.
    37
    38   MS. STEEL:   If I could just ask a legal question?  This
    39        says: "A party may put in evidence at the trial some or any
    40        of the answers to interrogatories."  They have not actually
    41        made any application during the course of this trial, and
    42        you did actually say that the evidence was closed.  I do
    43        not mind whether or not they go in, provided the whole lot
    44        go in.  So, I am not too bothered.  But I do not think that
    45        the Plaintiffs should at this stage, after the evidence has
    46        been closed, be able to pick and choose which ones they now
    47        want to rely on, when they have not specifically stated
    48        that at a time when we could deal with it.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Are they going in as evidence at all?  They 
    51        are going in not as evidence of the truth of the answer, 
    52        which is surely what Order 26, Rule 7 is? 
    53
    54   MR. RAMPTON:  If Mr. Morris swears an affidavit in answer to
    55        interrogatories and says that he was at the 1989
    56        anti-McDonald's fair all day, that is evidence that he was.
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It can be put in under this as evidence that
    59        it was, and then one can look to see whether others should
    60        go in.

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