Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 59
1 the 13 references. Come back to that, because we spent all
2 morning trying to see what you had to do next in relation
3 to that. Therefore, no decision on that will feature in my
4 ruling because you have got steps to take.
5
6 MR. MORRIS: The last point I want to make is that we are not
7 making any submission now on the authorities to do with the
8 power over documents, but I did notice when I was reading
9 the Lonrho case, and I think it was document 4 in the
10 authorities of the Plaintiffs, there was some statement --
11 I cannot remember now, but maybe it might jog someone's
12 memory -- there was some statement that that case was an
13 extremely unusual case and should not be used as a guidance
14 for future cases. I do not know if anyone remembers that,
15 but maybe I will check it up again when I have more time.
16 It may have been No. 3, actually, in the authorities, the
17 Lonrho and Shell.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is the same case. One was the report of
20 proceedings in the Court of Appeal. The other was the
21 report of the proceedings in the House of Lords.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: Yes. It was page 632, internal 632, of document 3,
24 and it said at the top: "The circumstances which have
25 given rise to disputes about discovery are quite
26 exceptional. They are unlikely to recur in any other case,
27 and for that reason they do not, in my view, provide a
28 suitable occasion for any general disposition by this House
29 upon the principles of law applicable to the discovery of
30 documents".
31
32 All I am saying is, I do not know all the implications of
33 that statement, but I just think that there ought to be
34 some care taken in conclusions drawn from the authorities.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We will adjourn now and continue with
37 Mr. Bowes at 10.30 on Monday morning.
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, may I mention one thing before that,
40 because it is quite important for Monday and for Mr.
41 Bowes? I have done a little bit of arithmetic. I find
42 that on average, over a day, one page -- and your Lordship
43 might have already done this exercise; I do not know -- in
44 this case one page represents about three and a half
45 minutes of evidence during the course of a full four and a
46 quarter hour day. I counted the number pages for Mr.
47 Gregory's examination-in-chief on pigs, and I found that
48 I took on that basis 66 and a half minutes in-chief.
49 Ms. Steel's cross-examination of Dr. Gregory on pigs
50 covered 15 and a half pages, which means that her
51 cross-examination took about 54 and a quarter minutes.
52
53 My Lord, on that basis, even though Mr. Bowes might be a
54 little bit longer than either of those, even if those times
55 were doubled, it ought to be possible to finish him
56 tomorrow.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Monday.
59
60 MR. MORRIS: That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in
