Day 163 - 25 Sep 95 - Page 09
1
2 The Defendants would, in effect, have to satisfy you,
3 assuming that such an argument is available at this stage
4 of the case at all, they would in effect have to satisfy
5 you that no reasonable reader could have found any meaning
6 of the words complained of other than that there is an
7 association between a certain kind of diet and certain
8 kinds of degenerative disease, because that is as far as
9 they can get until they get into an area of evidence or
10 areas of evidence which are contested.
11
12 If it be asserted simply that some scientists -- you could
13 put it this way -- have identified a statistical or
14 epidemiological association or relationship between certain
15 kinds of diet and certain degenerative diseases, and if
16 that is all the leaflet means in the sense that every
17 single reasonable reader of the leaflet must have come to
18 that conclusion and no other, why then, the Defendants'
19 application could succeed.
20
21 my Lord, I submit that in the light of your Lordship's
22 previous ruling on meaning when you gave leave to us on
23 14th December 1994, and said at page 9 of the judgment at
24 letter F: "It is only fair to say that, subject to any
25 further argument, I find it difficult to see how the words
26 in the leaflet 'linked with' could mean other
27 than 'causally linked with'", I submit that an argument
28 about meaning at this stage of the case is wholly sterile
29 for the reason that the Defendants' argument (which has to
30 be of the kind that I just proposed, if their argument is
31 to succeed because that is the only common ground) is
32 doomed to failure at this stage.
33
34 If it failed for that reason and we were left with,
35 perhaps, a ruling that the meaning was such as your
36 Lordship proposed it might be a moment ago without actually
37 saying whether it was or was not, then nothing is saved
38 because, at the very least, the argument about the
39 causality of the relationship, if any, between diet and
40 cancer remains to be concluded and resolved. That is at
41 the very most.
42
43 There is not any argument, of course, if the words mean
44 "food causes these diseases", then there is no defence at
45 all, as I said at the outset, because there is no evidence
46 that it is or it could be so.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. What about the question of deciding the
49 meaning? It has been brought to a head because of the
50 application which Mr. Morris gave notice to make at the end
51 of last term which he has just made, or begun to make
52 perhaps I should say, because I do not think he has
53 finished yet. It would have the advantage that it would
54 help the parties know what evidence -- you have your
55 cross-examination of Professor Crawford to come -- it would
56 help the parties decide what witnesses, if any, needed to
57 be recalled and what they should be asked about.
58
59 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, if your Lordship ruled that the leaflet
60 in this area meant what we have pleaded with your
