Day 072 - 12 Jan 95 - Page 07

     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, volume IIIA, No. 6.
     2
     3   MR. MORRIS:  A very brief point on No. 4.  He talks about his
     4        response to all customer complaints.  So, in fact, in his
     5        statement he is giving evidence about his response to all
     6        complaints, not just environment/index.html">litter complaints.  A more significant
     7        point is No. 7, which is that he says that "the Council
     8        refused our application for a licence".  Because of the
     9        blanking out of all the other complaints that were part of
    10        the dispute over the licence, we do not know all the
    11        details that we might need to know about why the licence
    12        was refused -----
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, but the point taken against you is that
    15        the refusal of the licence is only of any relevance to this
    16        case (if, indeed, it is of any relevance at all) in so far
    17        as fear of environment/index.html">litter was a factor in the refusal.
    18
    19   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, but we have to know the weight of the other
    20        factors as well in order to judge the weight that was given
         to the environment/index.html">litter issue.  Also, the perception of the residents
    22        is very important in this dispute because what the evidence
    23        is from a McDonald's witness, Mr. Stump, is that the
    24        residents are, effectively, lying or completely incompetent
    25        in judging McDonald's response to the environment/index.html">litter issue.  No
    26        doubt it may be said that McDonald's is lying in what they
    27        are saying.
    28
    29        So, in other words the perception of the residents in how
    30        McDonald's respond to their other concerns may help the
    31        court to decide on, you know, who is being economical with
    32        the truth and why.  I mean, I have said what I have to say
    33        on that specifically but that is my specific relevance
    34        case, but that I do not think that kind of weight or
    35        relevance should be necessary when, clearly, all the
    36        matters in these documents are related to the same issue
    37        which is disputes, relations between McDonald's and the
    38        community, disputes over a number of matters and the way
    39        McDonald's dealt with it, whether the residents considered
    40        it effective and all that kind of stuff.  So, I think it is
         clearly related.  It is clearly reasonable to suppose
    42        blanked out passages might, directly or indirectly, enable
    43        the Defence in this case to advance or damage the
    44        Plaintiffs' case -- sorry, to advance our case or damage
    45        their case.
    46
    47        My final point, to sum up, I do not believe that the Court
    48        of Appeal would want to open the door to the mass blanking
    49        out, or the possibility of the mass blanking out, of
    50        documents and in each case put the burden on the party 
    51        seeking discovery a burden of justification for applying 
    52        for a particular blanked out piece.  I think that would be 
    53        an enormous unfair burden and an enormous waste of court
    54        time and effort.  I think that there are grounds for
    55        testing the Court of Appeal ruling in more depth -- I am
    56        not saying I necessarily want to do that; I want to get on
    57        with the case really -- but I think it would be very
    58        helpful if these documents were disclosed.
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, thank you.  Do you want to say anything,