Day 190 - 23 Nov 95 - Page 30


     
     1        "interview with Lynval, Assistant Manager", or "interview
     2        with Mark Ryan, Second Assistant Manager", and since
     3        Ms. Lamb's statement starts out: "This is to confirm that
     4        I recall the following two interviews made in the course of
     5        researching into working practices at McDonald's", I would
     6        infer that she asked the questions and got the answers in
     7        the course of research, rather than in order to find out
     8        how she stood, for instance.  She was not an employee at
     9        Holborn -- I think it was Holborn, was it not, Mark Ryan?
    10
    11   MR. RAMPTON:  That, my Lord, with respect, is entirely right.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I suppose it may be a question for the
    14        Defendants.  At the moment, it looks as if the questions
    15        posed by Ms. Lamb to Lynval, although she worked at
    16        Kentish Town, were posed as a researcher ---
    17
    18   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, exactly.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- rather than an employee.
    21
    22   MR. RAMPTON:  Exactly the same is true of the interview with
    23        Mark Ryan.  One only has to look at it to see that it
    24        contains a whole lot of generalities about the conduct of
    25        the store's business and the way the employees are treated,
    26        and so on and so forth; and they are generalities which
    27        have nothing whatever and could not conceivably have been
    28        given as answers to questions like: What will my hours be?
    29        How much am I going to be paid?  When will I get a
    30        performance review?
    31
    32   MR. MORRIS:  Can I help the court here on the subject?
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I suggest you wait until Mr. Rampton has
    35        finished.  Then I would like you to help me on that.
    36
    37   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, further than that, they do not have the
    38        character of inquiries by an employee as to what her
    39        conditions are going to be, any of them, neither the
    40        statements in Mark Ryan's interview, nor those in
    41        Lynval's.  They are all answers, quite obviously, to
    42        general questions.
    43
    44        But, my Lord, further than that, whilst a Manager would be
    45        authorised to tell an employee what his or her working
    46        conditions are likely to be, and so on and so forth, even
    47        if he was deceived into thinking that the person was an
    48        employee rather than a journalist, he would certainly not
    49        be authorised to give out a whole lot of information about
    50        the Company's general business and practices. 
    51 
    52        There is perhaps a further point.  I have not thought about 
    53        this.  One might have to ask oneself: what would be the
    54        effect of such a deception?  One would perhaps answer it
    55        with another question:  would not such a fraud, in the
    56        broad term, actually invalidate the authority?
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  We do not know it is a fraud because, for all
    59        I know, Ms. Lamb was quite open about her purpose, if the
    60        purpose was to pose the questions as an interviewer rather

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