Day 136 - 16 Jun 95 - Page 11
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2 MR. RAMPTON: Thank you. Please remain there.
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4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I would suggest we do is we take the
5 break now. It is sufficient for you to look at the plan
6 and the annotations on it in case there is some material
7 there so that you know what, if anything, you want to ask
8 Mr. Newton Brown about the plan. Mr. Riley, give Ms. Steel
9 and Mr. Morris all the tiles, please, and you can have
10 another look at those as well.
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12 MR. MORRIS: We do really want to make a protest. I am not
13 being nit-picking because this is a pretty fundamental
14 document, this McDonald's floor plan, and really it could
15 have been disclosed at the beginning of the case.
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17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Fundamental to what?
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19 MR. MORRIS: It is fundamental to certainly the employment, the
20 whole employment part of the case, and certainly to the
21 health and safety issue. So, all I am saying is it is a
22 shame that we have not had time before we question someone
23 who is responsible for the design.
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25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Look, I am going to put that away. I am not
26 going to look at it again unless you ask me to look at it.
27 Your complaint is justified. By the same token, if you had
28 thought that a plan of a typical McDonald's, or any
29 particular restaurant, might be important, you could have
30 asked for one because there, obviously, must be plans;
31 whether you would have got just the kind of plan you wanted
32 and whether you would have got a plan of a particular
33 restaurant or not, I cannot say. But I am going to put it
34 on one side. I have taken the briefest glance. I am not
35 going to look at it again unless you introduce it.
36
37 How long do you want to look at the plan? I mean, I would
38 not get bogged down in the plan unless you have to. You
39 are going to call a number of witnesses who have worked in
40 McDonald's. You have already had a number of witnesses who
41 have worked in McDonald's, although they may now be in
42 management positions. If there was something about the
43 actual layout which you thought was unsafe, then, no doubt,
44 you would have raised it already. So, I personally very
45 much doubt whether the plan is of any great significance.
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47 MS. STEEL: I think the main thing is that if we had it earlier,
48 we could have asked our witnesses for their comments about
49 what Mr. Newton Brown has said about where the actual
50 non-slip tiles are laid, to see whether that tallied with
51 their experience.
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53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You can ask them that now. No-one will
54 complain if they give an answer which no-one is expecting
55 because it has only just come in at this stage.
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57 MR. RAMPTON: What is more is that a whole fistful of
58 Plaintiffs' witnesses that worked as crew are still to
59 come.
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