Day 091 - 17 Feb 95 - Page 21


     
     1        leg injury which has a potential for shortening their lives
     2        by culling or causing them some kind of pain or
     3        discomfort".  Once you start going into every single
     4        disease, the next question is:  Well, are you doing this
     5        because you are saying tenosynovitis, or something, could
     6        be eradicated in this way or very much lessened in that
     7        way?  If that is part of your case, then it should be put.
     8
     9   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  It is difficult for us to have prepared on
    10        that because, of course, Sun Valley refused to have our
    11        expert witness visit and prepare a report.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, but you either have evidence on that or
    14        you have not.  If you have got someone who is an expert in
    15        chickens, let us leave aside the percentage, for instance,
    16        but if you get an answer from, for instance, Mr. Pattison
    17        that a certain number of Sun Valley broilers do suffer from
    18        this, he might say it is very small.  You may or may not be
    19        able to challenge that.  But if you are going to call a
    20        witness who says they ought not even to have that many
    21        because there is this solution to the problem, short of
    22        stopping the broiler industry altogether, then you ought to
    23        put it.
    24
    25        Your witness may not have had a right of inspection, but if
    26        he or she is an expert would, presumably, say if it was
    27        unnecessary to have that kind of disease at all or have it
    28        in any measurable percentage.  That is the point.
    29
    30   MR. MORRIS:  We could formally say that every time we ask a
    31        question if you feel this is the best that could be done.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The point is if you are going to say that,
    34        then the next thing you really have to say is:  "Because of
    35        this, this is what you could do".
    36
    37   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, but that is what we do not necessarily know
    38        because ----
    39
    40   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Your witness would presumably know.
    41
    42   MR. MORRIS:  Our witness, yes.
    43
    44   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The answer is if you are saying it should not
    45        be there, you really should have asked your witness what
    46        the basis for that is, so you can put that too.  If you
    47        cannot do it, you cannot do it, but bear it in mind.
    48
    49   MR. MORRIS:  I think you did say earlier on in the case that you
    50        would not expect us to formally put every ----- 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I quite agree.  It is just a reminder that 
    53        if, in fact, you can do it, you should.
    54
    55   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I am not going to, every time we get to
    56        closing speeches or whatever, every time the Defendants
    57        make an assertion which was not put to one of my witnesses,
    58        I am not going to make a fuss about that.  But where there
    59        are specific matters of veterinary care, the Defendants do
    60        have as their expert on chickens somebody who, judging by

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