Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 56
1 MR. RAMPTON: It could not do on the text. The text really
2 could have been printed into the Statement of Claim. It is
3 not really susceptible, sensibly susceptible, of
4 reinterpretation.
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You may have answered my question from your
7 point of view. But next question was whether the general
8 sting in 4B, "are guilty of the destruction of rainforest,
9 thereby causing wanton damage to the environment", whether
10 that can be justified by evidence of indirect
11 responsibility for destruction of rainforest.
12
13 MR. RAMPTON: I would say yes, it could get near to it. One has
14 to look at what the sting actually is. It is not: "Oh, he
15 has got a gang of people with Golden Arches on their donkey
16 jackets, with chainsaws, cutting down trees, or spraying
17 the trees with poisons" -- leaving the word "lethal" out of
18 it for the moment. The sting is that the scale of
19 McDonald's operation is such that they are responsible --
20 and I do not mind whether it is directly or indirectly for
21 this purpose -- for the destruction of vast areas of
22 rainforest.
23
24 Now, put it like this: if the words alleged (to borrow
25 your Lordship's words from an earlier occasion) direct or
26 active destruction, in the sense of having gangs of people
27 with McDonald's donkey jackets, but the facts were that
28 McDonald's agents, whether agents in the ordinary sense or
29 agents in the strict legal sense, were in fact marching
30 into the rainforests to hack them down to make way for beef
31 ranches, and McDonald's knew about this and -----
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If there was a farmer on the edge of the
34 rainforest and McDonald's or its agents said: "We will make
35 sure our suppliers buy cattle from you, provided you can
36 provide 10,000 head a year", and they only had land to grow
37 5,000, and it was obvious that they were going to chop down
38 trees to provide grazing for another 5,000 head, and -----
39
40 MR. RAMPTON: And that was going on on a large scale.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is just a question of fact and degree as
43 to whether, at the end of the day, if there is any indirect
44 responsibility at all, that can be said to mean that they
45 are guilty of destruction of the rainforest.
46
47 MR. RAMPTON: If it is -----
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Which is B. If there is any indirect
50 responsibility at all, if one can trace the chain back of
51 causative effect, back to the chopping down of trees, one
52 has then got to stand back and say: well, that is what
53 happened; does that mean that the general sting in 4B in
54 all good sense has been justified?
55
56 MR. RAMPTON: Not if it happened once and it happened more or
57 less accidentally, no; or even twice or three times; not
58 conceivably.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The answer would be no, but one has to stand
