Day 200 - 12 Dec 95 - Page 19
1 he was about as categoric as you could be about causes and
2 so on, but they might well want to recall Professor
3 Crawford and say: "Look, this is the meaning; would you
4 agree that it be so or not?" It might be risky for them to
5 do so but, for all I know, Professor Crawford will say:
6 "Well, I can go along with that".
7
8 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, none of their witnesses has said anything
9 like that yet. If Professor Crawford is going to say:
10 "One Big Mac a week may well make a person's diet high in
11 fat etc." -- I have stress the word "diet" -- "regardless
12 of what else that person eats", then Professor Crawford
13 ought to have a piece of paper or a note sent to us before
14 he says that. There is not any evidence on the Defendants'
15 side of the court at the moment to suggest anything
16 remotely approaching that proposition.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Before I could pass judgment on that, I would
19 have to remind myself, really, of all the evidence which,
20 as I have said, I purposely did not want to do because, as
21 one of the principles tells us, the merit or otherwise is
22 not a matter to be taken into consideration when deciding
23 the meaning.
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, all I am saying is if the Defendants are
26 now going to try to make that case, namely, as I say, that
27 one Big Mac a week, or even one Big Mac a month, is going
28 to so unbalance a person's diet that they are going to be
29 in peril of getting one of these degenerative diseases
30 without regard to what else they eat, why, then, in our
31 submission, they have to tell us that is going to be so.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Were they not doing that, quite plainly, in
34 cross-examination when they were saying to your witness:
35 "Look, no teenager has fat free yoghurt", or whatever it
36 was, "or so many salads in his diet; that just is not the
37 way 15-year old boys eat, and if that is right, if you slip
38 a Big Mac in once a week, you are getting high in fat" --
39 again this may be nonsense, but I am not put to deciding
40 that yet but that is, clearly, what the Defendants were
41 suggesting by their cross-examination, was it not?
42
43 MR. RAMPTON: It was but, with respect, now we know that
44 cross-examination is misdirected because your Lordship's
45 meaning does not make any reference to what else the person
46 might eat (and, with respect, correctly so) because what
47 else a person eats is not attributable to McDonald's and
48 never could be.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not so sure about that. I know it is a
51 matter of argument, but am I not entitled to take, say, a
52 typical 15 year old boy with what may be a typical 15 year
53 old diet, and then ask: If he slips in a Big Mac and
54 french fries once a week, as an example, might that well
55 make his diet high in fat because, along maybe with other
56 things, it is playing its part in tipping the diet over to
57 being high in fat? Then I have to ask: If that may be so,
58 does that lead to the very real risk that you will suffer
59 cancer?
60
