Day 163 - 25 Sep 95 - Page 46
1 the NLRB or somebody like that. It proves nothing except
2 what the man said. It has no inherent or intrinsic
3 credibility of its own. If the plea goes on to say, "What
4 is more McDonald's are challenging now what the man is
5 saying", why then, the allegation is completely meaningless
6 as a particular of justification. The reason being, I say
7 this not for your Lordship's benefit but for the
8 Defendants, that what you have to prove when you justify a
9 libel is the truth of what you publish. You have to prove
10 that it is in fact the case; not that some minor official
11 in the United States thought or said that it was.
12
13 My Lord, passing on to No. 2, in fact what is here pleaded
14 is not even what Mr. Morris' computerised newspaper extract
15 says. What the newspaper extract says, which as far as
16 I know is the only basis for this allegation, is that the
17 woman brought a suit, an action, against the Company and
18 made certain allegations, partly through the might of her
19 attorney. The pleading says she was sacked. That is an
20 impermissible quantum leap on the basis of what Mr. Morris
21 has got in his sheaf of papers and by the canons laid down
22 by the Court of Appeal.
23
24 MR. MORRIS: Can I seek clarification? It says ----
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. We must follow the order.
27
28 MR. MORRIS: It just helps the court if ----
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, it does not help me in fact. It might
31 help me on a purely temporary basis, but it turns into a
32 discussion rather than argument on one side or another. So
33 make a note and tell me when your turn comes. Yes.
34
35 MR. RAMPTON: So far as Nos. 3 and 4 are concerned, if I can
36 restrain my anger about this, first of all, I say "So
37 what?" Then I see what some of the words are based on and,
38 quite honestly, I am astounded that Mr. Morris should do
39 this at this stage in the case. If one looks at page 46
40 (this is in relation to 4) Mr. Morris has pleaded that the
41 general accounting office found that the labour
42 investigators -- I will start, if I may, with the second
43 sentence. The first sentence is completely meaningless in
44 the context of this case. The second sentence says: "The
45 US Department of Labour investigated violations of child
46 labour laws in March 12th and 14th 1990 and uncovered
47 15,500 violations in the service industry including at
48 McDonald's." What I cannot find is anything which ties
49 Mr. Morris' computerised newspaper extract to McDonald's in
50 this sense, my Lord. On page 46 the extract starts in the
51 middle of the page, the second main paragraph: "The House
52 Government operations sub-committee chaired by Mr. Lantos
53 follows a Department of Labour sweep that uncovered more
54 than 15,500 child labour violations in the service
55 industry", but nothing relating that to McDonald's, except
56 this that they are said to have said that they have never
57 terminated a franchised contract over child labour law
58 violations even though there had been violations.
59
60 That does not tell me, I do not know if it tells your
