Day 294 - 05 Nov 96 - Page 14
1 try and do that tomorrow.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You can certainly do that, and obviously the
4 first thing I have to do in relation to each of these
5 sections is decide what I think the meaning is and then,
6 having decided that, whether it is defamatory of the first
7 plaintiff and the second plaintiff. You can obviously
8 address me at any time on it. If either of you have second
9 thoughts about the meaning in any section and wish to
10 reformulate what you say is the meaning, I suggest you
11 write it down and just hand it in to me at the end and we
12 can have such discussion as is necessary on that.
13
14 MR. MORRIS: Yes. Obviously, we had some initial pleaded
15 meanings and comments which have pretty well stood the test
16 of time.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I am giving you is an opportunity to say
19 you are still adhering to that, since with everyone's
20 pennies continuing to drop during the hearing of any case,
21 and especially if it is a long one -- this is not peculiar
22 to you, it is certainly true of me -- at any stage if you
23 have a further thought, you can tell me what it is.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: Right. OK.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Obviously, you are particularly concerned
28 with what can be justified in the evidence because that is
29 what you want to tell me about, but one must not neglect
30 the importance of getting the right meaning and whether it
31 is defamatory. I have your point that putting it in
32 a nutshell you say the leaflet is only pointing out the
33 risks of food poisoning from a meat based diet.
34
35 MR. MORRIS: Yes, basically, and we believe that we have
36 demonstrated that. We believe that McDonald's accept that
37 there are risks and that they are serious risks, because
38 they say they take them seriously. In fact their defence,
39 their case, is that they do the best they can. But whether
40 or not they do the best they can, which we do not think
41 they do anyway -- whether or not they do the best they can
42 -- is irrelevant to the fact, the reality, which the fact
43 sheet points to. So I am going to go through some of the
44 reality, and then tomorrow we will hand up a document with
45 references. So I am not going to bother about-----
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right. Core submissions then.
48
49 MR. MORRIS: Well, Dr. North really gave an overview of this
50 subject. He was a specialist in food hygiene and food
51 safety, and he had made expert visits on our behalf to
52 McKeys hamburger production factory and Sun Valley Poultry
53 suppliers and to a local McDonald's store. He agreed that
54 the majority of the reported food poisoning incidents are
55 linked to eating meat, especially chicken and minced beef.
56 For example, for burgers, which is exactly what it says in
57 the fact sheet, the high volume, intensive Sun Valley
58 production system, he explained, "produced chicken meat,
59 meat with a salmonella burden of 25 percent magnified from
60 one percent in the live birds." So they were clearly
