Day 136 - 16 Jun 95 - Page 11


     
     1
     2   MR. RAMPTON:  Thank you.  Please remain there.
     3
     4   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What I would suggest we do is we take the
     5        break now.  It is sufficient for you to look at the plan
     6        and the annotations on it in case there is some material
     7        there so that you know what, if anything, you want to ask
     8        Mr. Newton Brown about the plan.  Mr. Riley, give Ms. Steel
     9        and Mr. Morris all the tiles, please, and you can have
    10        another look at those as well.
    11
    12   MR. MORRIS:  We do really want to make a protest.  I am not
    13        being nit-picking because this is a pretty fundamental
    14        document, this McDonald's floor plan, and really it could
    15        have been disclosed at the beginning of the case.
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Fundamental to what?
    18
    19   MR. MORRIS:  It is fundamental to certainly the employment, the
    20        whole employment part of the case, and certainly to the
    21        health and safety issue.  So, all I am saying is it is a
    22        shame that we have not had time before we question someone
    23        who is responsible for the design.
    24
    25   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Look, I am going to put that away.  I am not
    26        going to look at it again unless you ask me to look at it.
    27        Your complaint is justified.  By the same token, if you had
    28        thought that a plan of a typical McDonald's, or any
    29        particular restaurant, might be important, you could have
    30        asked for one because there, obviously, must be plans;
    31        whether you would have got just the kind of plan you wanted
    32        and whether you would have got a plan of a particular
    33        restaurant or not, I cannot say.  But I am going to put it
    34        on one side.  I have taken the briefest glance.  I am not
    35        going to look at it again unless you introduce it.
    36
    37        How long do you want to look at the plan?  I mean, I would
    38        not get bogged down in the plan unless you have to.  You
    39        are going to call a number of witnesses who have worked in
    40        McDonald's.  You have already had a number of witnesses who
    41        have worked in McDonald's, although they may now be in
    42        management positions.  If there was something about the
    43        actual layout which you thought was unsafe, then, no doubt,
    44        you would have raised it already.  So, I personally very
    45        much doubt whether the plan is of any great significance.
    46
    47   MS. STEEL:  I think the main thing is that if we had it earlier,
    48        we could have asked our witnesses for their comments about
    49        what Mr. Newton Brown has said about where the actual
    50        non-slip tiles are laid, to see whether that tallied with 
    51        their experience. 
    52 
    53   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You can ask them that now.  No-one will
    54        complain if they give an answer which no-one is expecting
    55        because it has only just come in at this stage.
    56
    57   MR. RAMPTON:  What is more is that a whole fistful of
    58        Plaintiffs' witnesses that worked as crew are still to
    59        come.
    60

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