Day 057 - 29 Nov 94 - Page 60


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Would you like to go away and refresh your
     3        memory, if you ever had one, of where it came from?
     4
     5   MR. ATKINSON:   Yes.  I know it is a complicated subject, that.
     6        Then, my Lord, it really is mea culpa in relation to the
     7        next point, because I had simply omitted to put in the
     8        reference there.  It is something I was going to do and I
     9        had forgotten it.
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What should go in there?
    12
    13   MR. ATKINSON:   I think it is tab 12A.
    14
    15   MS. STEEL:  Can you just remind me which page we are on?
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Page 19, the three dots in answer 13.  You
    18        say it should be tab 12A
    19
    20   MR. ATKINSON:   It should be tab 12A, I believe, of pink bundle
    21        II, publication.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  And then 32.
    24
    25   MR. ATKINSON:   And 33.
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  On page 26.
    28
    29   MR. ATKINSON:   Yes, my Lord, in relation to -----
    30
    31   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I understand the pleading of inference, and
    32        it may be that the last two lines are really just
    33        surplusage and could perfectly well be crossed out, or you
    34        could have said that you are unable to state the precise
    35        steps which would be a standard kind of answer to that kind
    36        of request where you are asking the court to draw a general
    37        inference from certain matters.  You cannot say, and you do
    38        not have to say, exactly what was done, but what you can
    39        say that it is to be inferred from this, that or the other
    40        that the other party was involved in participating in some
    41        activity you complain about or other.
    42
    43   MR. ATKINSON:   Yes.  In fact, when I was doing these, my Lord,
    44        I actually considered not putting in that last bit for
    45        precisely that reason.  I think the only reason that I did
    46        put it in was to alert the Defendants to the fact that they
    47        have obligations on discovery in relation to the matter,
    48        because if they do have any documents that are relevant to
    49        the issue of their involvement or not, as the case may be,
    50        then they are under an obligation, just as much as 
    51        McDonald's are, to give full discovery in relation to that. 
    52        So, in one sense it is surplusage but, in other another 
    53        way, it was meant just to push that point home.
    54
    55        The authority for saying that they must give full
    56        discovery, one case amongst many is, in fact, the case in
    57        the Court of Appeal in this action, where really if one
    58        summarises what the Court of Appeal is saying, if you have
    59        a reasonable basis for putting something into a pleading as
    60        a Plaintiff, then you are entitled to discovery from the

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