Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 43


     
     1        unnecessary barriers to the use of these defences are
     2        erected while at the same time the court is able to ensure
     3        that its processes are not abused by irresponsible and
     4        unsupported pleadings."
     5
     6        My Lord, that is precisely what we have here.
     7        Your Lordship's form of the pleading is both responsible
     8        and supported by some evidence in the case.  Whether it
     9        makes any sort of a case against McDonald's is quite
    10        another question.  But, as a pleading, according
    11        to Neill L.J.'s criteria, it is entirely proper, as indeed
    12        is the first half of paragraph 2.  In its present form, the
    13        second part of paragraph 2 is wholly objectionable, because
    14        they are no reasonable grounds or no grounds upon which a
    15        reasonable person could reasonably believe that it was a
    16        true case.
    17
    18        My Lord, I go back then, if I may, to paragraph 1; and my
    19        objection to this paragraph includes what Neill L.J. said.
    20
    21   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think we had perhaps better take the break
    22        there, because people have been speaking quite quickly and
    23        it will give Miss Foot a break.
    24
    25                       (Short Adjournment)
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    28
    29   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, one thing I should have said about
    30        paragraph 2 -- and it applies equally to paragraph 1, and
    31        I will not repeat it -- is this, that looking on down the
    32        road to the possible question of discovery, should any of
    33        these proposed pleadings be allowed in any part -- and
    34        I think I said this to your Lordship the other day --
    35        before ever we agree to any discovery, we should ask
    36        your Lordship for an order that the Defendants give proper
    37        further and better particulars of both these pleadings.
    38        I have assumed, in saying that, that the Defendants would
    39        not give them voluntarily.  At any rate, I would not be
    40        willing to give any discovery at all, apart from that
    41        which, by the good fortune of Mr. Walker's presence as a
    42        witness, they already have and the help Dr. Gomez Gonzales
    43        in getting that map, nothing has come from McDonald's,
    44        because McDonald's did not have anything, and I would not
    45        conceive of embarking upon the argument of what power we
    46        (McDonald's) have to extract documents from subsidiaries or
    47        suppliers until I have proper particulars of both these
    48        pleadings, both of which, as I think I said to your
    49        Lordship the other day, using lawyer's language, absolutely
    50        scream for particulars. 
    51 
    52        My Lord, I will not say any more about that at this stage, 
    53        because it is not directly relevant, save in so far as it
    54        may bear upon the question of how far these are proper
    55        pleadings at all.
    56
    57        My Lord, in relation to paragraph 1, I embrace -- as,
    58        indeed, is my principal ground of objection -- what
    59        Neill L.J. said and which I have just read, but I ask two
    60        further questions about this pleading, both of which are

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