Day 072 - 12 Jan 95 - Page 09
1 relation to matters which might go to credit.
2
3 My Lord, what the Defendants have to do is to satisfy your
4 Lordship that there are grounds for supposing that the
5 material which has been blanked out may go to an issue in
6 the proceedings, that is to say, an issue on the pleadings
7 between the parties. In this area of case there is nothing
8 on the pleadings between the parties beyond environment/index.html">litter.
9
10 My Lord, it might very well be that in a different case
11 McDonald's might have to litigate their response to
12 complaints about smells or noise, but that is not this
13 case. There is no part of the case, there is no issue in
14 the case, which directly or indirectly involves McDonald's
15 general satisfactoriness of McDonald's general response to
16 customer complaints. It is not pleaded, it is not in the
17 leaflet and it is nowhere to be found as a generality in
18 any of the witness statements.
19
20 If and in so far as that question arose as a matter of
21 credit in cross-examination of any of the Plaintiffs'
22 witnesses, why, then the Defendants must do the best they
23 can on the materials they have. They are not entitled by
24 way of discovery to the assistance of the Plaintiffs or of
25 the court in going down that road.
26
27 My Lord, I remind your Lordship's of what is actually
28 pleaded in relation to this because it is right your
29 Lordship should have the reference. It is tab 2 of the
30 Abstract of Pleadings, page 3. It is an indented paragraph
31 towards the bottom of the page. This is the only reference
32 that I have found to environment/index.html">litter in the whole of the pleading:
33 "In or around December 1991, Paul Preston, McDonald's UK
34 President, stated in an interview with the London Evening
35 Standard that 'environment/index.html">litter is certainly the biggest complaint
36 the company receives'", so environment/index.html">litter is an issue. Of course,
37 that flows from the fact, as your Lordship will recall,
38 there is a reference to environment/index.html">litter -----
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There is a reference to it in the leaflet, in
41 fact, is there not?
42
43 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. It says: "Tonnes of paper end up littering
44 the streets", so environment/index.html">litter is in issue. Nothing that has been
45 blanked out relates to environment/index.html">litter. Everything that has been
46 blanked out relates to other matters including, as I have
47 said, smells and noise, even including that passage on page
48 780 which is headed: "Rubbish removal from McDonald's".
49 I accept -- that is why I led evidence from Mr. Stump about
50 it -- as it were, the in-store rubbish is or might be part
51 of the environment/index.html">litter question. But, as it so happens, the words
52 which follow under the heading on page 780, "Rubbish
53 Removal from McDonald's" do not relate to the question of
54 environment/index.html">litter; they relate to the question of noise.
55
56 I can show your Lordship in that one instance, if your
57 Lordship should wish to see it (and I will show it to the
58 Defendants too, of course), why I say that. But I would do
59 that under protest, with reluctance, because, as I have
60 said we have taken our obligations seriously. We have
