Day 163 - 25 Sep 95 - Page 27
1 MR. RAMPTON: No. If Mr. Morris wants to prove United States
2 law, he has to give that as evidence of fact through an
3 expert in United States law; he cannot expect McDonald's to
4 do it for him.
5
6 MR. MORRIS: We will try to make enquiries about that fact.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When are you going to do this, because I want
9 to give a ruling on all these matters in one go? So that
10 you can have it in some kind of written form, I will
11 probably have it word processed. I want to do it in one go
12 rather than miss out some of the matters while you see if
13 you can find some additional material.
14
15 MR. MORRIS: That particular point -----
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is just that upon about three or four
18 occasions you have said: "Maybe we will be able to get
19 something extra on that", or words to that effect. I am
20 asking you what you have in mind. Are you going to come
21 back to it tomorrow morning or are you asking me to listen
22 to your argument now, put it all on the back burner and
23 wait until you come back with more material? What are you
24 suggesting happens?
25
26 MR. MORRIS: No. The bit I was going to check, the bit earlier
27 on in that particular that I was going to check is in these
28 documents in front of us about the 1,000 labour
29 inspectors. I just need to check where it was. The only
30 thing that I was going to check tonight was if I can find
31 anything about the law relating to workers' compensation.
32 McDonald's actually have a witness who has put in a
33 statement about workers' compensation matters, but I do not
34 think they are being called.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That may be argument anyway. What you have
37 to do is to get your pleadings about child labour law
38 violations off the ground.
39
40 MR. MORRIS: Yes. So, that is not a crucial one to establish
41 straightaway. That is something that is up to us to check
42 the laws. So shall I move on to the next one?
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have to say I am rather startled by the
45 suggestion that children have no right to sue for injuries,
46 but there we are.
47
48 MR. MORRIS: In most cases.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Anyway, Billings, Montana?
51
52 MR. MORRIS: Yes, Billings. This is pages 12 and 13 of the
53 documents. This is from -- page 12, bottom of page 12 --
54 Billings Gazette 1995, April 15th, 1995: "Five local
55 McDonald's pay child labour fine". Then it goes on over
56 the page -- maybe if you could just read page 13? The
57 basic idea is that a franchisee owning five restaurants was
58 fined initially $12,600 reduced to $7,000 for breaching
59 regulations covering 14 and 15 year olds illegally working
60 more than three hours a day on school days and after
