Day 280 - 17 Jul 96 - Page 07

     
     1        concerned with the running of an anti-McDonald's campaign.
     2         ... The Defendant's knew of and were involved in the said
     3        campaign and the dissemination of the leaflet complained of
     4        was part of this campaign."
     5
     6             Now, I have not set out here the additional further
     7        and better particulars of the Defendant's said involvement,
     8        but it varies and in certain respects it is still the
     9        Plaintiff's claim that by attendance at meetings and not
    10        disassociating from activities the Defendants somehow
    11        participated in them.  In places, that is the way they put
    12        their case.  So, in effect, the Plaintiffs seek damages
    13        from the Defendants for the concerted actions of all those
    14        involving themselves in the antiMcDonald's campaign of
    15        Greenpeace London.  The Plaintiffs had obviously chosen who
    16        they sue.  They started with five and it is now down to
    17        two, and no criticism, as it were, of them, they are
    18        entitled to choose who they like.  They can choose one or
    19        the lot, and so no rule of law requiring them to sue, but
    20        the quid pro quo, the Defendant's themselves, are entitled
         to claim contribution from anyone they say is jointly or
    22        equally liable with them.
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, but can you help me in relation to that
    25        because at the moment, having had the benefit of your
    26        skeleton argument, I am having difficulty with the
    27        possibility that the inquiry agents could ever be liable at
    28        all to the Plaintiffs, and yet that has to be the basis of
    29        the contribution.  I would have thought it must be beyond
    30        argument that whatever the inquiry agents did had the
    31        consent or implicit consent of McDonald's, therefore, it
    32        could not be a tort against McDonald's, and the big issue
    33        on this part, the inquiry agent part of the case, is
    34        whether McDonald's express or implicit consent -- from
    35        whether one can infer from McDonald's express or implicit
    36        consent what the inquiry agents did, and consent to
    37        whatever the Defendants did.
    38
    39   MR. STARMER:   Yes.
    40
    MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have tried to think of useful analogies,
    42        and analogies are very dangerous.  The nearest I have got
    43        is this.  Suppose I think a number of people are going to
    44        walk across my field and I do not like the idea of that --
    45        or my little back garden for that matter -- and I treat
    46        that as potential trespass, so I said to a friend, "You
    47        know some of these people, I would like you to go with them
    48        and see who does."
    49
    50   MR. STARMER:   Yes.
    51
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Now, people who do walk across my garden or
    53        trespassers, save for the friend I ask to go with them who
    54        has my consent to walk across my back garden, does he not,
    55        so they could not ever be jointly liable for the same
    56        damage and they could not third party him.
    57
    58   MR. STARMER:   Well, that depends if--
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  If my friend saw that they were going to walk