Day 164 - 26 Sep 95 - Page 41


     
     1        one per week.
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, and you have between 90 and 100 people,
     4        are there not?
     5
     6   MR. MORRIS:  No.
     7
     8   MR. RAMPTON:  Time sheets, yes.
     9
    10   MR. MORRIS:  No, as far as I understand, all the workers are on
    11        the same time sheet.  It may be two sheets for a week or
    12        one sheet for a week.  The staff are all on one sheet.  You
    13        can see the times which they have worked and been scheduled
    14        for.  The ones that we disclosed, for example, from
    15        Orpington which had, of course, five breaches of
    16        regulations on them incidentally.  It was only actually two
    17        pages.  So it will not be more than 100 sheets.
    18
    19   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, the point I was going to make in response
    20        to Mr. Morris' unhelpful interjection (to abandon sarcasm
    21        for a moment) was this, that the Defendants (which they
    22        repeatedly forget) have a case to make.  They have to make
    23        a defence of justification.  It is no part of McDonald's
    24        case, as a matter of strict law, to satisfy your Lordship
    25        by positive, affirmative proof that they are lily white.
    26
    27        The burden is on the Defendants to satisfy your Lordship,
    28        as a matter of probability, that what they say in their
    29        defence or through their witnesses is true.  They cannot
    30        get discovery of the Plaintiffs' documents in order to
    31        assist them in that process unless they give proper
    32        particulars.  That applies as much to a witness statement
    33        as it does to a pleading of the allegations which they
    34        make.
    35
    36        Mr. Logan's supplementary statement is devoid of such
    37        particulars.  If it had been served as a pleading at the
    38        proper time, it would have been subject to the usual
    39        request:  Who, when, where, by what means, in what
    40        circumstances, by what agent of the Plaintiffs were these
    41        things done?  Until those particulars are provided,
    42        I decline to make the discovery which is asked for.
    43
    44   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Is there anything you want to say in reply to
    45        that?
    46
    47   MR. MORRIS:  I suppose we might as well start with Logan as that
    48        was the last thing fresh in our minds.  First of all,
    49        Mr. Logan was talking about a pattern of behaviour.  He was
    50        part of the management team.  He is entitled to draw 
    51        conclusions about the pattern of management practices.  It 
    52        is a regular feature of the strategy of the Plaintiffs to 
    53        say that if it is an individual, it is not relevant because
    54        it is only one individual, then it is not a standard
    55        practice, and if it is a general application, it is too
    56        vague to have to supply any document.  So we cannot win
    57        either way on that line.
    58
    59        The point is that it is not a vague allegation that we are
    60        talking about.  We are talking about a specific store at a

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