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
