Day 057 - 29 Nov 94 - Page 14


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That may or may not be so.
     3
     4   MR. RAMPTON:  Dr. Arnott, I have already said I would be willing
     5        to recall him.  In any case, when Professor Crawford's new
     6        statement was produced just before he gave evidence,
     7        I believe it to be right -- we can check it in the
     8        transcript -- that your Lordship in any event suggested
     9        that it might be appropriate to recall Dr. Arnott to deal,
    10        as it were with -----
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Maybe.
    13
    14   MR. RAMPTON:  So, I would certainly be willing to recall
    15        Dr. Arnott.  Whether he can add anything to what he has
    16        already said, I really do not know, because my questions to
    17        him were all directed at the same question from start to
    18        finish.
    19
    20        My Lord, can I move on then because I am entirely -----
    21
    22   MR. MORRIS:  Can we just ask, are the Plaintiffs going to be
    23        asked if their amendment is going to be accepted (which we
    24        hope it is not) but if it is going to be accepted, can they
    25        clarify what they mean by their amendment?  We are not
    26        clear what they mean by "cause" and it is not clear what
    27        they mean by "McDonald's meals causing".
    28
    29   MR. RAMPTON:  Mr. Morris, I am sorry, does not listen to what
    30        I say; he may not think it is worth listening to, that I
    31        fully understand.  I have already dealt with that.  What
    32        I said is this, what the meaning does it to set out in
    33        clear English what we say an ordinary person would infer
    34        from this leaflet.  It is not part of the function of a
    35        pleaded meaning drawn from words complained of, as it were,
    36        to put in refinements which reflect Mr. Morris' anxieties
    37        about the state of the evidence.  That is quite a separate
    38        question.
    39
    40   MR. MORRIS:  I do not have any anxieties.
    41
    42   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, let Mr. Rampton say what he wants to.
    43
    44   MR. RAMPTON:  The Plaintiff does not have an obligation to state
    45        what he believes to be the state of the evidence on any
    46        particular topic.  That is the Defendants' obligation
    47        because the Defendant must say what it is that he is
    48        setting out to prove.  When a meaning is pleaded in a
    49        Statement of Claim as representing the natural and ordinary
    50        meaning of the words complained of, it asserts no more than 
    51        this, that that is how an ordinary person would have 
    52        understood the words complained of. 
    53
    54        I do not propose that the ordinary person, by pleading this
    55        meaning, would have entered into the kind of Byzantine
    56        refinements which Mr. Morris proposes the meaning should
    57        complain.  Meals are meals, cause is cause and cancer and
    58        heart disease are just what they say.
    59
    60   MS. STEEL:  If it is what people would say, though, the point is

Prev Next Index