Day 164 - 26 Sep 95 - Page 20


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  I was going to tell you what your Lordship's
     2        powers were, but I will do that in a minute.
     3
     4   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You must say what you want to say to me.
     5        This is something which has been brewing up for weeks so
     6        you should know what you want to say.  I am giving you an
     7        opportunity because you are a separate party to say what
     8        you want to say.
     9
    10   MS. STEEL:  I feel that if I have to read the document before
    11        deciding what pages I think are relevant and want to be
    12        photocopied, a document that is 700 pages long will take a
    13        considerable length of time to read to make those
    14        decisions.  If I have to go to the Plaintiffs' offices to
    15        do that, time would definitely need to be set aside in
    16        order to do that.  It should be borne in mind that it takes
    17        over an hour and half to get to the Plaintiffs' offices
    18        from where I live and an hour and a half back obviously.
    19        I am unlikely to be able to read the whole manual in one
    20        day.  I would probably be lucky to read it all in two
    21        days.
    22
    23        I do think that the Plaintiffs should just disclose it and
    24        take out the section that they do not want us to see.  I am
    25        sure that witnesses for the Plaintiffs in court have stated
    26        that it was a loose leafed volume -- perhaps there is a
    27        bound one as well -- because they regularly updated certain
    28        sections, but not all of it at the same time.  I think that
    29        the Plaintiffs should be ordered to make enquiries to see
    30        whether they can get hold of a loose leaf version of the
    31        Operations Manual and then disclose all the pages apart
    32        from the ones that they have particular objection to.
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, it is relatively straightforward I hope.
    37        On 7th August 1995, which is almost seven weeks ago to the
    38        day, it is, in fact, seven weeks ago to today, we wrote to
    39        the Defendants and we said this -- it is paragraph (9) on
    40        page 2 of our letter of that date -- "Lastly, with regard
    41        to our client's Operations and Training manual, we have now
    42        received this once again.  With the exception of one
    43        section, Security McOpco Insurance, which clearly does not
    44        bear on any of the issues in the action, there are other
    45        pages within the manual in addition to those already
    46        disclosed which may be relevant (although, in our view,
    47        much of it is not).  We do not propose to photocopy all
    48        these pages.  However, the manual except for the section on
    49        security is available for inspection at our offices by
    50        prior appointment." 
    51 
    52        That was on 7th August.  The court has not sat during the 
    53        intervening seven weeks.  The Defendants have made no
    54        attempt to take advantage of that offer of inspection which
    55        is the one which is normally made under Ord. 24 r. 9.
    56
    57        Your Lordship does have a power under Ord. 24 r. 11 in
    58        these terms, 11C, 1C.
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Let me find it.

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