Day 057 - 29 Nov 94 - Page 14
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That may or may not be so.
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4 MR. RAMPTON: Dr. Arnott, I have already said I would be willing
5 to recall him. In any case, when Professor Crawford's new
6 statement was produced just before he gave evidence,
7 I believe it to be right -- we can check it in the
8 transcript -- that your Lordship in any event suggested
9 that it might be appropriate to recall Dr. Arnott to deal,
10 as it were with -----
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12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Maybe.
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14 MR. RAMPTON: So, I would certainly be willing to recall
15 Dr. Arnott. Whether he can add anything to what he has
16 already said, I really do not know, because my questions to
17 him were all directed at the same question from start to
18 finish.
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20 My Lord, can I move on then because I am entirely -----
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22 MR. MORRIS: Can we just ask, are the Plaintiffs going to be
23 asked if their amendment is going to be accepted (which we
24 hope it is not) but if it is going to be accepted, can they
25 clarify what they mean by their amendment? We are not
26 clear what they mean by "cause" and it is not clear what
27 they mean by "McDonald's meals causing".
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29 MR. RAMPTON: Mr. Morris, I am sorry, does not listen to what
30 I say; he may not think it is worth listening to, that I
31 fully understand. I have already dealt with that. What
32 I said is this, what the meaning does it to set out in
33 clear English what we say an ordinary person would infer
34 from this leaflet. It is not part of the function of a
35 pleaded meaning drawn from words complained of, as it were,
36 to put in refinements which reflect Mr. Morris' anxieties
37 about the state of the evidence. That is quite a separate
38 question.
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40 MR. MORRIS: I do not have any anxieties.
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42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, let Mr. Rampton say what he wants to.
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44 MR. RAMPTON: The Plaintiff does not have an obligation to state
45 what he believes to be the state of the evidence on any
46 particular topic. That is the Defendants' obligation
47 because the Defendant must say what it is that he is
48 setting out to prove. When a meaning is pleaded in a
49 Statement of Claim as representing the natural and ordinary
50 meaning of the words complained of, it asserts no more than
51 this, that that is how an ordinary person would have
52 understood the words complained of.
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54 I do not propose that the ordinary person, by pleading this
55 meaning, would have entered into the kind of Byzantine
56 refinements which Mr. Morris proposes the meaning should
57 complain. Meals are meals, cause is cause and cancer and
58 heart disease are just what they say.
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60 MS. STEEL: If it is what people would say, though, the point is
