Day 025 - 16 Sep 94 - Page 38
1 actually produce a copy, that there was also a booklet
2 which -----
3
4 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, we did ask the Americans to do the most
5 thorough search during the vacation. We have everything
6 they were able to find. It is not a comprehensive
7 archive.
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There we are. Mr. Gardner, I find it very
10 difficult to believe that an attorney acting for
11 McDonald's would say that McDonald's has, that is by 30th
12 July, now combined its ingredient and nutrition
13 information in a single booklet and send a copy to you,
14 knowing of your particular interest in that, when it had
15 not, in fact, happened. That seems very odd.
16 A. I am not at all denying it; I suspect it did. I am
17 just trying to be very straightforward as to what
18 I remember, what I know and what I can deduce. I deduce
19 that there was a brochure. Mr. Rampton -- I do not mean
20 to be picking on a detail -- but Mr. Rampton asked me if
21 I could agree with him that the brochure was one that
22 contained nutrition. I cannot agree because that would be
23 testifying to something that I am personally unsure of,
24 but I would certainly accept that. But that is not my
25 judgment, your Lordship, to make.
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: You are quite right, Mr. Gardner, that is his
28 Lordship's job to draw the inferences. But perhaps we can
29 help a little further. On the "Get ready!" page of the
30 coloured bit, McDonald's in 1986, December 1986, is saying
31 this to its own staff. This is not a matter of
32 advertising in any sense at all: "Each store must have a
33 supply of [the] brochures. The advertising campaign and
34 in-store materials direct customers to ask for this
35 brochure if they desire additional nutrition information."
36 There would not be much point in saying that to the
37 employees if the brochure did not contain nutritional
38 information, would there?
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Which page is that?
41
42 MR. RAMPTON: Page 119, my Lord. The first blob.
43 A. My only problem, Mr. Rampton, is that both the 86, the
44 version that is at tab 18 and the 87 version that is at
45 tab 19, are both identically entitled "McDonald's
46 Food: The Facts". I would be happy to presume for your
47 questions that a version more akin to 19 was what was set
48 out. I just cannot tell the court that is the case.
49 I was not a recipient of this.
50
51 Q. That is as far as I need to go with that, Mr. Gardner.
52 Assume that to be right, and that a customer who asked for
53 further information about the nutritional value of
54 McDonald's food was given one of these brochures, do
55 I understand your evidence to be that that would not
56 absolve McDonald's from liability for any respective which
57 the advertisements themselves were found to be false or
58 misleading?
59 A. Of course not. It would absolutely not. That would
60 be a matter of switch advertising. It is a relatively
