Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 42


     
     1   MS. STEEL:   I just wanted to say in respect of the maternity
     2        memo, they said they are going to look for it and see
     3        whether there was any relevance.  If they are going to say
     4        it is not relevant for some reason, then I think they
     5        should give the reason why they say it is not relevant.
     6
     7   MR. MORRIS:  I think it might be helpful if the Plaintiffs, for
     8        all these documents, the ones they have said they are
     9        looking into, should still be subject to an order that they
    10        provide the documents, and that if they do not give an
    11        affidavit about all this application -- because what
    12        happens is, we make applications going back since the
    13        beginning of the case and, to be honest, sometimes we just
    14        forget or lose track of when the Plaintiffs say:  "Oh, we
    15        will look into that", and we have to go chasing back months
    16        and months to find out if it was served, what they have
    17        said about it, whether they had an order, or whatever.
    18        I think it would be helpful if there was some kind of
    19        overall order regarding all these matters, so that even
    20        when the Plaintiffs have indicated cooperation, they would
    21        obviously, therefore, not object to an order being made
    22        that they provide that, subject of course to any good
    23        reason why they do not provide it, such as privilege or
    24        whatever.
    25
    26        The crew survey questions and the whole discussion about
    27        are they evidence -- not the questions, but the results --
    28        and computer generated printouts, if the Plaintiffs have
    29        introduced documents which they have relied on, then
    30        I would have thought the position would be that, as far as
    31        the Plaintiffs were concerned, they have verified the
    32        documents by putting them to their witness.  The
    33        obligation, really, would be on us to point out any of the
    34        documents that we did not wish to accept.
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think that is fraught with danger, because
    37        I might then treat a document as agreed when there was some
    38        misunderstanding about it, whether it was agreed.  It might
    39        be simply be that you had not thought to challenge it for
    40        any reason, which would be perfectly understandable because
    41        there are so many documents.  It is far better that a list
    42        is made.
    43
    44        I understand that what Mr. Rampton says is that his side of
    45        the court will provide a list at least of the documents
    46        that they want to rely on; they may go further and list any
    47        documents about which there might be a query as to whether
    48        they amount to evidence at all.  You can say which ones you
    49        are content to admit for the purposes of this litigation,
    50        and then, if that leaves documents on the list which 
    51        Mr. Rampton wants to rely on, we may have to have an 
    52        argument about whether they are admissible in evidence, 
    53        what they are admissible actually to prove, and Mr. Rampton
    54        may have to consider whether he calls any evidence, for
    55        instance, as to how the document came to be made or the
    56        information on it came to be there, and get himself within
    57        a Civil Evidence Act provision.
    58
    59        But I have to say I am very unhappy about a situation
    60        whereby it is assumed that the contents of a document are

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