Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 42
1 MS. STEEL: I just wanted to say in respect of the maternity
2 memo, they said they are going to look for it and see
3 whether there was any relevance. If they are going to say
4 it is not relevant for some reason, then I think they
5 should give the reason why they say it is not relevant.
6
7 MR. MORRIS: I think it might be helpful if the Plaintiffs, for
8 all these documents, the ones they have said they are
9 looking into, should still be subject to an order that they
10 provide the documents, and that if they do not give an
11 affidavit about all this application -- because what
12 happens is, we make applications going back since the
13 beginning of the case and, to be honest, sometimes we just
14 forget or lose track of when the Plaintiffs say: "Oh, we
15 will look into that", and we have to go chasing back months
16 and months to find out if it was served, what they have
17 said about it, whether they had an order, or whatever.
18 I think it would be helpful if there was some kind of
19 overall order regarding all these matters, so that even
20 when the Plaintiffs have indicated cooperation, they would
21 obviously, therefore, not object to an order being made
22 that they provide that, subject of course to any good
23 reason why they do not provide it, such as privilege or
24 whatever.
25
26 The crew survey questions and the whole discussion about
27 are they evidence -- not the questions, but the results --
28 and computer generated printouts, if the Plaintiffs have
29 introduced documents which they have relied on, then
30 I would have thought the position would be that, as far as
31 the Plaintiffs were concerned, they have verified the
32 documents by putting them to their witness. The
33 obligation, really, would be on us to point out any of the
34 documents that we did not wish to accept.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think that is fraught with danger, because
37 I might then treat a document as agreed when there was some
38 misunderstanding about it, whether it was agreed. It might
39 be simply be that you had not thought to challenge it for
40 any reason, which would be perfectly understandable because
41 there are so many documents. It is far better that a list
42 is made.
43
44 I understand that what Mr. Rampton says is that his side of
45 the court will provide a list at least of the documents
46 that they want to rely on; they may go further and list any
47 documents about which there might be a query as to whether
48 they amount to evidence at all. You can say which ones you
49 are content to admit for the purposes of this litigation,
50 and then, if that leaves documents on the list which
51 Mr. Rampton wants to rely on, we may have to have an
52 argument about whether they are admissible in evidence,
53 what they are admissible actually to prove, and Mr. Rampton
54 may have to consider whether he calls any evidence, for
55 instance, as to how the document came to be made or the
56 information on it came to be there, and get himself within
57 a Civil Evidence Act provision.
58
59 But I have to say I am very unhappy about a situation
60 whereby it is assumed that the contents of a document are
