Day 082 - 01 Feb 95 - Page 21
1 That is why I tried to illustrate the point over, for
2 instance, the plaintiff who suffered an injury and is suing
3 the defendant and refuses to be medically examined by the
4 defendant's expert. He or she is actually party to the
5 action and the court cannot order that the plaintiff
6 undergoes a medical examination; what it can say is: "We
7 will not let you proceed with your case", if it thinks it
8 fair to make such an order, "unless you do let the
9 defendant's doctor examine you".
10
11 If McDonald's refuse to let you look at their premises, you
12 could say: "Well, do not let them go ahead with their
13 action unless they do", and I would have to consider all
14 the arguments for and against whether I made such an order,
15 but we are not in that situation at all with an independent
16 abattoir like Jarret.
17
18 The only thing I can offer to you is when you come back to
19 any question of discovery, you may have an argument that if
20 you had the facility to inspect somewhere like Jarret
21 I might well decide that it was not essential for you to
22 see documentation of a certain kind. But in a situation
23 where you have not been able to examine an abattoir, then
24 maybe documentation is the only way you can get any kind of
25 information about it. Do you understand?
26
27 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But that is an argument in relation to
30 discovery. It may be a factor in dealing with discovery
31 whether you have actually asked somewhere like Jarret
32 yourself if you can go and look. I am not offering any
33 view on that; I am just saying it may be.
34
35 MS. STEEL: While we are on this, we were also wondering about
36 site visits. Is it possible for the court to make site
37 visits to certain places? We were thinking about this in
38 relation to the Kings Road dispute as well. I went down
39 there and I will be making a statement on there. I walked
40 the route and it is not possible to do it in the time
41 stated by the Plaintiffs' witnesses in court.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When you say "site visits" do you mean me
44 actually going -----
45
46 MS. STEEL: Yes. I wanted to know what the position was.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The word they have given in court is "a view"
49 and you are perfectly entitled to ask me to have a view.
50 I can consider that and decide whether it is right I should
51 go or not. We touched on it rather in relation to whether
52 I should go into a McDonald's. That is what it is called.
53 You are not restricted on where it may be; I have to make a
54 decision on whether I think it would really be helpful or
55 not. I will hear Mr. Rampton on it as well.
56
57 It may be you just have to think of what places you may
58 want me to see. The only view I ever went on in a murder
59 case was not the scene of the alleged murder; it was the
60 scene of the alleged alibi. So you are not restricted.
