Day 313 - 13 Dec 96 - Page 44
1 MS. STEEL: Right. Since they consented to publication by the
2 agents effectively they are consenting to their reputation
3 being damaged as they consider it, or either that they did
4 not consider it would damage their reputation or they were
5 content to have their reputation damaged. And that in that
6 case the damage to their reputation cannot be separated out
7 from any alleged damage caused by publication of the
8 fact sheet by others. It is a similar point to the
9 argument about Plaintiffs' consent to the distribution of
10 the Veggies fact sheet.
11
12 I forgot to say this, but on consent can I ask that you...
13 I mean, I am not sure to what extent there is an argument
14 about the law in terms of it seems that the Plaintiffs do
15 accept that their agents, or they consented to the
16 publication in the instances where the inquiry agents
17 actually physically handed out the fact sheet themselves.
18
19 MR. RAMPTON: No, I have not said that. All I have said is that
20 it would be difficult for the Plaintiffs to sue on those
21 individual publications, if any, during 1990.
22
23 MS. STEEL: OK. If it is not accepted then. I have not had
24 time to go through all the law so we would ask that...
25 Because we did set out all the law when we made the
26 argument for the amendment.
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I remember the argument in relation to that,
29 and I will refresh my memory of it.
30
31 MS. STEEL: Thank you. I do not know whether this particularly
32 matters, but it was a question you were asking the other
33 day about something to about the low pay and bad conditions
34 had to, sort of, go together in order to be defamatory, or
35 something. I mean, this does not really apply so I do not
36 know whether it really matters, but you could have bad
37 conditions and high wages and it could still be considered
38 defamatory if the bad conditions were unnecessary, so...
39
40 Just a general thing, about the admissions made in this
41 case, and I would just like to make the point that because
42 they have been admitted means that the evidence on those
43 issues has not been heard in open court and in a trial this
44 length it might be easy to forget about, or for them to
45 make little impression, and just to say that really in fact
46 they should be given particular attention, particularly the
47 admissions in relation to food poisoning and the breaches
48 of employment law, and so on, because they are very serious
49 matters.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We will take the break there.
52
53 MS. STEEL: Yes.
54
55 (Short adjournment)
56
57 MR. MORRIS: The fact sheet, it might be worth having a copy of
58 the fact sheet.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I have one here, thank you.
