Day 205 - 17 Jan 96 - Page 11
1
2 So the significance, as Ms. Steel said, is that torture and
3 murder were dropped from the Statement of Claim. They are
4 not complained -----
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What do you make of that paragraph and the
7 next one, you see, because it is upon that that I have been
8 left with the impression that, rightly or wrongly, the
9 Plaintiffs say that the word "torture" in "McTorture" is
10 important because I am going to be invited to conclude that
11 it imputes that McDonald's are utterly indifferent to the
12 welfare of the animals which are used to produce their
13 food. That is what I get from those two paragraphs, from
14 35 to 47.
15
16 MR. MORRIS: We see the first paragraph as complete back
17 tracking on, really, a superficial point. The point about
18 utterly indifferent is, that is our case, but that we do
19 not have to justify the word "torture" or "McTorture",
20 because that has already been removed from the case and
21 already been conceded by Mr. Rampton.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I cannot accept that.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: That is what the face of it is.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The reason I cannot accept that at that
28 moment -- and that is why it is probably no harm in having
29 this discussion now -- at the end of the day, I have to
30 decide what this leaflet means; and if there have been
31 formal admissions or a point has been formally abandoned,
32 then it may be said, well, it is not for me to doubt that.
33 But, at the end of the day, I have to read the relevant
34 parts of the leaflet and decide what they mean to me. In
35 default of some formal admission or formal categoric
36 concession -- which I do not see here, because at the very
37 worst, it seems to me, you could say that what Mr. Rampton
38 has said may have appeared equivocal; he would say it was
39 not, but you could argue that -- there has been no formal
40 admission or concession. So, at the end of the day, I am
41 going to look at the relevant parts of this leaflet and
42 deciding what they would mean to the reasonable ordinary
43 reader -- who, it is obvious, I take myself very largely to
44 be a projection of.
45
46 MR. MORRIS: The reason that we brought this up was because, as
47 in the next document that Mr. Rampton brought up -- it is
48 day 79, I do not know what date that is actually; it is one
49 of Mr. Rampton's. I have not got his list here.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You do say that McDonald's are utterly
52 indifferent, and you rely upon the allegation of that, as
53 I understand it, in this technical, legal way which I will
54 say, so that either side can pick it up in argument later
55 on, that McDonald's in their amended pleading have not just
56 pleaded matters of fact such as the cutting of throats
57 while unconscious; they have pleaded an inferential
58 meaning, utterly indifferent. That, you may argue in the
59 future, is what entitles you to call all the other evidence
60 which you have called about what you would say is inhumane
