Day 163 - 25 Sep 95 - Page 04
1 trial certain things have been established which I will go
2 into, not on the evidence which I will not go into, which
3 have made us believe that it will be beneficial for all
4 parties and for the public interest to make this
5 application and to win this application.
6
7 The first point which is in our skeleton argument is that
8 striking out the claim would substantially reduce the
9 burden of preparing closing speeches and the necessity to
10 call further evidence, all of which would save a great deal
11 of time and effort and money on all sides.
12
13 The second point -- I am going through the skeleton
14 argument now, if it helps -----
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think you can go to paragraph 3 at the top
17 of the second page of your statement.
18
19 MR. MORRIS: So we will take the front page as read, yes?
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: Thank you very much.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: One of the problems you have is I have not
26 even ruled what the meaning of the leaflet is so far as
27 nutrition is concerned, so it is a bit difficult, is it
28 not, to say that the evidence cannot -- it is obvious now
29 that you cannot justify the meaning when you do not even
30 know what the meaning is.
31
32 MR. MORRIS: The application we are making is not dependent on
33 the evidence or on the meaning; it is dependent on the fact
34 that the Plaintiffs have circulated identical or, to all
35 intents and purposes, identical views, information,
36 whatever and, therefore, the claim has no chance of success
37 on the links between diet and ill-health because, we would
38 say, either the Plaintiffs have circulated equivalent
39 defamatory material and, therefore, they cannot claim that
40 the material they are complaining of -----
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Why do you say that, because you have put
43 about three or four lines of this leaflet to a witness from
44 McDonald's and asked him if he disagreed with that, written
45 for lay people to read, and he said, no, he would not
46 disagree with that, but it was three or four lines from the
47 actual text. You did not ask him about McCancer; you did
48 not ask him about the cartoon which says: "If the
49 slaughterhouse doesn't get you, the junk food will".
50 Charleston upon which you rely in your skeleton argument,
51 says that one has to look at the whole of the relevant part
52 of the publication and take the one meaning to the ordinary
53 reasonable fair minded reader of it.
54
55 MR. MORRIS: I was not going to refer to Dr. Arnott. That is a
56 matter of evidence. I was going to refer, however, to
57 Mr. Preston and Mr. Beavers who are the -----
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They are evidence as well, are they not?
60
