Day 053 - 22 Nov 94 - Page 24
1 degenerative disease in some people, whether by
2 contribution to an unhealthy diet or otherwise, you would
3 have a lot of supporters around the country who would be
4 very taken aback, would you not?
5
6 MS. STEEL: I am not arguing against that. I am just saying
7 that we do not have to prove that, and that is not the
8 whole of our case.
9
10 MR. MORRIS: There are many things that have cropped up in our
11 evidence that are relevant to the case, but not
12 specifically things that we have to prove to win our 16
13 points -- their 16 points, as it happens.
14
15 We are a bit uncomfortable that what is happening at the
16 moment is that we are under pressure to justify, not
17 justify but to explain, our state of mind in the history of
18 this case, but it is the Plaintiffs that are seeking to
19 amend. They have to justify and explain and satisfy the
20 court what their state of mind has been with their
21 pleadings: why they are changing it; why they have made
22 admissions; why they have made admissions late; why have
23 they only made part admissions; why do they make only an
24 admission on cancer yesterday, in controversial terms, that
25 they are accepting a link between diet and cancer; why did
26 they only make an admission yesterday for the first time,
27 when they made an admission on heart disease, it was, in
28 fact, a causal link?
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You are not under pressure. You are being
31 given the opportunity, having heard what the test was
32 yesterday in the authorities, to say why it would be unfair
33 to you or you would be prejudiced if there was the
34 amendment; and in order to get my mind around that problem,
35 I am looking back at what your frame of mind might or might
36 not be. That is the relevance of it.
37
38 You carry on with your submissions. I only interrupted to
39 try and get my mind round it and to see just what your
40 position was.
41
42 MS. STEEL: I can honestly say that we never realised that we
43 would have to prove causally, or McDonald's meals rather
44 than diet, as they are trying to amend here. Perhaps that
45 may seem daft, or something like that, but that is the fact
46 of the matter.
47
48 We were working on what their pleadings were, and what we
49 pleaded as a result of what they said in their Statement of
50 Claim. That was the basis of our whole preparation and
51 cross-examination. Where "cause" was asked about, it was
52 because that was one type of link, not because we thought
53 that that was the link that we had to prove.
54
55 Yesterday, Mr. Rampton said that it was clear that the
56 Statement of Claim was badly pleaded -- I think he did say
57 something to that effect -- and that it was only when
58 Mr. Atkinson was looking through the pleadings in the break
59 in September that they realised this.
60
