Day 083 - 06 Feb 95 - Page 37
1 encouraging the use of, "lethal poisons to destroy vast
2 areas of Central", not south, "American rainforest to
3 create grazing pastures for cattle to be sent back to the
4 States as burgers and pet food and to provide fast-food
5 packaging materials".
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is a bit late for to you seek to strike it
8 out now, is it not? I understand absolutely your decision
9 not to have another strike out application because you
10 wanted to save time and get on with it.
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But at least if you had done that, and if the
15 Defendants had complained about it, they might have got
16 back to the Court of Appeal rather than seven months into
17 the trial.
18
19 MR. RAMPTON: I know, and this is not the right time to make
20 that application. Either I should have renewed it after
21 the Court of Appeal. I might have to renew it at the end
22 of the case as I am quite entitled to do.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You will just argue on the merits then that
25 there is nothing to support it.
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: There is no defence.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It will not be a strike out, will it?
30
31 MR. RAMPTON: No, but this is a question of balance on the
32 discretion under Order 24, whether it be Rule 8 or Rule 13,
33 which is the inspection rule, I think. It is a question of
34 balance. One has, with respect, to have regard to what is
35 actually the libel complained of. True it is that it says
36 not only are McDonald's and many other corporations
37 contributing to a major ecological catastrophe; true it is,
38 arguably speaking, that has to be read with the previous
39 allegations of which there is absolutely no evidence at all
40 in this case; true it is that it says right at the end of
41 that column as a generality: "It is no exaggeration to say
42 that when you bite into a Big Mac you are helping the
43 McDonald's empire to wreck this planet", but if one uses
44 that as an aid to striking what one might call the just and
45 fair balance in this case, then to drive McDonald's to make
46 discovery, perhaps through their suppliers -- if I am wrong
47 in the submission I made this morning -- about the sources
48 of their beef production over a period of maybe 20 or 30
49 years would, in my submission, be wholly wrong.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That may be so. What it seems to me is that
52 I have to decide a point of principle. Let us just for the
53 sake of argument suppose that I was for your submissions
54 this morning; it is immediately restricted to documents
55 which are or have been in the First or Second Plaintiffs'
56 power, which would not include within the power of their
57 suppliers unless there was some contractual obligation to
58 put your clients in possession of them at least if asked.
59
60 MR. RAMPTON: I am sorry, my Lord I did not hear that last
