Day 053 - 22 Nov 94 - Page 18


     
     1
     2        To me, there is quite obviously a difference between those
     3        two things, and there is in what the Plaintiffs are
     4        amending their pleadings to.
     5
     6        Can I ask for a five-minute break?
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
     9
    10                            (Short Adjournment)
    11
    12   MR. MORRIS:  Just to make a final point on meanings, on the
    13        meaning of F1, I think that it would be helpful if
    14        Mr. Rampton explained what he meant about the meals aspect
    15        of the change of the amendment.  If, as it says, he is now
    16        saying that "if you eat McDonald's food you will get
    17        cancer", or "eating a McDonald's meal is apt to kill you",
    18        then that is clearly a complete change in the meaning of
    19        where it talks about "contents" in F, which has to be read
    20        after the previous phrase about the nutritional value of
    21        the food they sell -- "are deliberately misleading the
    22        public as to the nutritional value of the food they sell
    23        when they know full well that the contents are linked with"
    24         -- it is talking about nutritional contents.
    25
    26        I think that if Mr. Rampton means someone has cancer or
    27        heart disease from eating McDonald's food specifically,
    28        then it is a completely implausible understanding of the
    29        leaflet and hence should not be allowed, in any event -- or
    30        "people are going to get cancer or heart disease from
    31        eating McDonald's food".
    32
    33   MS. STEEL:   I do not know if there is anything else you wanted
    34        to know about meaning?
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  Am I to take it from what you said
    37        (because I did not put it to you, I put it to Mr. Morris
    38        while he was on his feet) that where you do use the
    39        words "linked with" in your plea of justification, or "the
    40        links between" or "a relationship between", that is to
    41        include all the possible kinds of links ---
    42
    43   MS. STEEL:  Yes.
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  -- or relationships?
    46
    47   MS. STEEL:   The main point is that any type of link would
    48        apply.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Whether causal or something more remote? 
    51 
    52   MS. STEEL:  Causal would be one type of link.  Where it says "do 
    53        not make clear the links between", we are saying any link,
    54        that there is a link, not every different sort of link that
    55        there is.
    56
    57        As I say, I think this was almost certainly taken from
    58        scientific journals, and so used in the same way that the
    59        scientific journals were using the word "link" and in the
    60        same way that McDonald's pamphlet uses the word

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