Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 27
1 MR. RAMPTON: I am grateful.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I cannot say whether the Defendants felt
4 inconvenienced by it, but it was an objection you were
5 entitled to take, and my recollection is that I stepped in
6 and suggested the way the question could be asked. I do
7 remember occasions when you interrupted out of anticipation
8 of the difficulty which I did not think had yet, in fact,
9 actually arisen and which did not arise, in fact; but that
10 just happens in litigation, as far as I am concerned.
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: It is bound to.
13
14 MR. MORRIS: So, if any of the Plaintiffs' witnesses, or our
15 witnesses, are experts, or can be deemed to be experts, or
16 have been asked by Mr. Rampton, for example, about their
17 opinion on certain things, then we should be able to put to
18 them an expert report.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You can put to them an opinion expressed in
21 an expert report, and if no objection is taken by the other
22 side it can be a convenient way of doing it to put the
23 whole report before them. But if an objection is taken to
24 the report, then we have to have an argument like this and
25 go back to Grassroot principles.
26
27 MR. MORRIS: Thus far, there has been no objection to either the
28 Preston or the Oregon Civil Evidence Act notices.
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You have got several days more days to go,
31 I am afraid.
32
33 MR. MORRIS: I do not remember when we served it.
34
35 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I do not know -- and it is quite
36 important -- Oregon I cannot serve a counter notice; that
37 may be subject to other forms of objection. It may be
38 subject to none, I do no know. But it is important that
39 I know when the Preston Civil Evidence Act notice, I having
40 waived my rights under the rules to have a formal notice
41 served, when it should be said by your Lordship to have
42 been deemed to have been served.
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I certainly cannot remember when. Can you
45 remember when you first said you wanted it on? If you
46 remember the witness you first wanted to put it to, that
47 will probably isolate it.
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: If it is Monday, then that is all right. There is
50 plenty of time for us to serve a counter notice.
51 Meanwhile, of course, it remains, as I submitted at the
52 beginning of this morning, in suspension.
53
54 MR. MORRIS: I think the Plaintiffs should have to make a
55 decision in a shorter time in the circumstances of this
56 case.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I cannot abbreviate the rules. Do you think
59 you put a notice on before Monday?
60
