Day 057 - 29 Nov 94 - Page 16


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  Page 13, my Lord.
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  -- "causally" was inserted between the words
     4        "are" and "linked" in the original pleading, what, if
     5        anything, would be the difference between F as it is in the
     6        pleading at the moment and F in your amendment?  What would
     7        be the differences in substance, if any?
     8
     9   MR. RAMPTON:  As between that and F1, none.  With respect to the
    10        original pleader, it would have been a somewhat clumsier
    11        way of saying the same thing.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  With the greatest respect to the learned
    14        pleader, it might be thought to have been put in a slightly
    15        convoluted way and it got round to the links with cancer
    16        and the breast and bowel and heart disease after the
    17        misleading when you say your main complaint is about
    18        causation of those things at all, and then misleading
    19        people who read the promotional matter comes second, as it
    20        were.
    21
    22   MR. RAMPTON:  I hope that makes sense.
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Whereas the pleader put the second one first.
    25
    26   MR. RAMPTON:  To be fair to him, that is no doubt because he
    27        followed the scheme of the leaflet.  What I have done is to
    28        follow what I take to be the likely reaction of the reader
    29        in descending order of gravity:  "Goodness me, this stuff
    30        is apt to give you cancer or cause you cancer of the
    31        breast", and so on and so forth, "and, what is more, that
    32        is an accepted medical fact and, what is more, the
    33        Plaintiffs do not tell anybody about it".
    34
    35        It seems to me those last two allegations do not add very
    36        much to the assertion that the food is probably going to
    37        kill you in the mind of the reader.  So far as damage to
    38        McDonald's reputation and business is concerned, it is the
    39        first one which is the one that matters.
    40
    41   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have heard what Ms. Steel said about the
    42        different meaning anyway, even if you put "causally" before
    43        "linked", but you would say there is no difference of
    44        substance, "causally" was in before -----
    45
    46   MR. RAMPTON:  With respect, my Lord, certainly as a matter of
    47        logic, it cannot be otherwise; the only way in which you
    48        can causally link the contents of an average McDonald's
    49        meal, that is to say, hamburger, chips and milk shake, the
    50        only way you can link that meal or its contents (which is 
    51        the same thing because the contents are what you eat) with 
    52        cancers and heart disease is if it actually causes them; 
    53        the only difference being that instead of using the plural
    54        "meals", the pleader has used the words "the contents of
    55        an average McDonald's meal".  The only lack of clarity --
    56        as your Lordship says, it is a bit convoluted -- is the
    57        omission of the word "causally".
    58
    59        May I pass then briefly to 4L?  I will not respond to the
    60        suggestion that at my great age when I open the case I put

Prev Next Index