Day 145 - 29 Jun 95 - Page 56
1 after all the evidence has been heard as part of a total
2 reasoned judgment but ------
3
4 MR. MORRIS: It would be a legal matter. I mean, we obviously
5 were hoping to get some advice on it today, if we can, but
6 I think you can rest assured the thrust of it will be a
7 legal point rather than weighing up the evidence that has
8 been heard.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: However that may be, and obviously I will
11 listen to whatever you want to say in relation to that,
12 what I would like you, Ms. Steel and Mr. Rampton,
13 Mr. Atkinson and Mrs. Brinley-Codd to think about -- you
14 need not reach a decision next week but we can discuss it a
15 little further next week, if you like -- is the question of
16 what the meaning actually is in relation to nutrition,
17 because I did express the view that I did not want to
18 decide what the meaning was as a preliminary point, as it
19 were, some weeks or months ago. The main reason for that
20 was I did not want to decide it prematurely, only for you
21 later in the day to think of an argument which you had not
22 actually put.
23
24 I am prepared to reconsider that if -----
25
26 MR. MORRIS: I did not quite catch the meaning of that last
27 bit?
28
29 MS. STEEL: Do you mean you wanted us to give a meaning, because
30 I know this was asked before and I actually read one out.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, that is not what I am on at the moment.
33 I did ask you to say what the meaning was and you gave me
34 an answer in relation to that. What had been raised -- not
35 in any formal way, I do not think -- was the question of
36 whether I should decide what the meaning actually was, not
37 what it was capable of meaning, which is all I had to
38 decide in relation to Mr. Rampton's application to amend,
39 whether the leaflet was capable of bearing the meaning set
40 out in the proposed amendment, but actually what the
41 meaning was.
42
43 In other words, what I decided was what the judge would
44 decide if he was sitting with a jury, is it capable of
45 bearing that meaning? What I did not go on to decide in my
46 jury role, as it were, was what it actually means. One of
47 the reasons (and, as I said a moment ago I think it was the
48 main reason) why I was disinclined to decide that there and
49 then, rather than when we had heard all the evidence and at
50 the end of the case, was I did not want to hear argument
51 from you on what the actual meaning was, decide what it was
52 and then have you say at the end of the case: "By the way,
53 we have thought of an extra argument we would like to put
54 on what the actual meaning was". In other words, I was
55 giving you the opportunity to wait right until the last
56 minute before you developed your whole argument on it.
57
58 All I am saying now is, if it was agreed between all the
59 parties that it would be beneficial to decide what the
60 meaning is before any of the nutrition witnesses are
