Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 28
1 MR. MORRIS: I cannot remember.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: On the morning of Tuesday, 7th February you
4 said, "There are two reports which we want Civil Evidence
5 Act notices on", and one was the Public Health Laboratory
6 Service and the other was the American. But I had a
7 recollection that you ----
8
9 MR. MORRIS: I seem to remember we did it before that, but
10 I cannot remember.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: During a witness the whole thing was raised.
13 Was it not, for instance, Professor Jackson on the 31st
14 January? On the morning of the 31st January -- I do not
15 know where it is in the transcript, but it would be about
16 pages 9 or 10 of the Case View -- you asked him to -- no,
17 that was the Public Laboratory Service table of four
18 categories: Satisfactory, fair and satisfactory,
19 unsatisfactory and unacceptable. That was Mr. Rampton. On
20 Monday, 6th February, I am not sure it was mentioned. Do
21 you have a recollection, Mr. Morris?
22
23 MR. MORRIS: No, but we will have to treat it as the 7th.
24 I thought it was earlier, but maybe it was the 7th of this
25 week. Then the Plaintiffs can wait for three weeks, or
26 whatever it is, and then not oppose it. Meanwhile, we will
27 not be able to do what we were going to do after that. So,
28 that will really help with the smooth flow of
29 cross-examination.
30
31 It seems to me -- I am not an expert on the law -- but it
32 seems to me there is a contradiction; if there is a general
33 agreement not to challenge the use of expert opinion being
34 tested by reference to documents that have not got Civil
35 Evidence Act notices on but that we cannot do that in this
36 case, it seems that Mr. Rampton is making an objection that
37 would cover the whole of expert opinion as well.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The reason for it may be this, that all the
40 documents, as indeed they are, which we were dealing with
41 before, were articles in learned journals or books written
42 by experts. They did not primarily go in for the facts
43 stated in them, but for the opinions which were expressed
44 on the assumption that the facts were right. That may not
45 be entirely accurate because when we are involved with
46 epidemiology, of course, the facts are fundamental facts in
47 the sense of the incidence of disease in certain countries
48 or sectors of the population.
49
50 It may be that the distinction with the PHLS report is that
51 what you really want from that are facts which you say
52 relate to the Friargate branch of McDonald's in Preston.
53 You may be able to achieve it by the Civil Evidence Act
54 notice method, but at the moment there are two practical
55 hurdles once objection has been taken. The first is that
56 there is some time to go before a counter notice has to be
57 served. The fact that Mr. Rampton's clients have 21 days
58 in which to serve it does not mean that they should take 20
59 days to get it out. There might be no reason I know why
60 they should not serve it on Monday. It is just that they
