Day 128 - 24 May 95 - Page 60
1 with the second question. We have just got relevance first
2 of all now. You may be right, you may be wrong about
3 relevance, but can you really say -- for all I know, you
4 have seen them all and read them all, and Mr. Atkinson has,
5 or Mrs. Brinley-Codd has and has not informed you, but
6 unless that has actually taken place, we cannot argue. I
7 mean, you actually saw it or Mr. Atkinson -----
8
9 MR. RAMPTON: No, I have not seen it. I do not know whether
10 Mr. Atkinson has or not. No, he has not.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: For all I know, when you looked at them you
13 would say: "Yes, this is relevant, and they ought to
14 be" -----
15
16 MR. RAMPTON: I might do. At the moment I rather doubt it
17 because I am disinclined to suppose that McDonald's, as it
18 were, apart from in general terms, but general
19 documentation about health and safety is relevant, for the
20 reasons that there is a Defence to be made out -- The
21 Defence is set out in the abstract of the pleading and does
22 not, so far as I can tell, make an allegation that
23 McDonald's are overall, what one might call, "careless" of
24 the health and safety of their own employees.
25
26 What it does say is that people were in a poor environment
27 which is often dangerous. That is a generality which, as
28 I think I have submitted to your Lordship before in the
29 past, I have always taken to be qualified by the particular
30 matters pleaded in the Defence. The discovery actually, it
31 is right to say, has exceeded that somewhat correct, if one
32 likes, but rather somewhat narrow view of the pleaded
33 issues in that there are, for example, disclosed things
34 like the HSE report. I do not know why that was
35 disclosed. It is not part of this case, but there it is.
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: This is a matter which crosses my mind.
38 There is an argument (and I am not offering any comment on
39 whether it would succeed or not) that health and safety is
40 really not relevant to the allegations in the leaflet at
41 all. The way it could be said it is, is that there is a
42 reference to the conditions under which people work, and
43 therefore one could say: "Well, health and safety is
44 relevant to that risk of suffering injury, and McDonald's
45 attitude, whether they care whether their employes are at
46 risk or not", but in a sense I do not have to worry my head
47 about that or, at least, I have not done, because there has
48 been a pleading in relation to health and safety.
49
50 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: And your clients, between you and your
53 instructing solicitors, have been prepared to take up the
54 cudgels on their behalf, in that area. That is the first
55 stage. The second stage is it has not been restricted to
56 1989 or 1990 because we have had a lot of evidence as to
57 what has happened since. We have had discovery as to which
58 has happened since.
59
60 As recently as the beginning of this week, we had discovery
