Day 295 - 06 Nov 96 - Page 11
1 lengthy effort by those survivors.
2
3 And there is no reason why they should have had to make
4 strenuous and lengthy effort. As we have now heard,
5 McDonald's accepts they were responsible, they accept that
6 for this case, but the point is, as I am standing here and
7 now -----
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, we have been through all that. You
10 have made your point. I expressed the difficulty I had or
11 a difficulty I can understand McDonald's would have with
12 their insurance policies if they did not restrict it to
13 this case. But I am only interested in this case.
14
15 MR. MORRIS: The reality is ----
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is admitted for this case. The moment
18 they admitted it for general purposes, their insurance
19 policy would be void and they would not be covered and they
20 would have paid all their premiums for nothing.
21
22 MS. STEEL: They would still have plenty of their profits that
23 they could use to pay -----
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am deciding this case and for the purposes
26 of this case the admission has been made and it is a fact,
27 as far as I am concerned.
28
29 MR. MORRIS: It is a fact that they were the cause of that food
30 poisoning outbreak through the undercooking of burgers and
31 should have accepted it immediately. They did effectively
32 by increasing their cooking times, anyway.
33
34 So all I am saying is that if it took those people
35 strenuous and lengthy effort to get what was not even
36 recognition and a court case of this magnitude, to get
37 McDonald's to admit liability, we can imagine the problems
38 that people are going to face making complaints at
39 McDonald's. It is hardly encouraging a culture of
40 confidence amongst the customers that complaints will be
41 taken seriously, even where it is absolutely proven and the
42 company knows it has been proven, and it is as serious as,
43 you know, near fatal and hospitalisation outbreaks.
44
45 So carrying on working through this document, page 40, we
46 have the reference to the failure to reject consignments
47 arriving at a temperature higher than their maximum
48 allowable specification. That is the second reference.
49 No, sorry, the second reference on that page says it would
50 be rejected. That was Timothy Chambers saying that. He
51 believed that if the temperature went over 4 degrees,
52 McKeys would reject it. But Mac keys was not rejecting it;
53 McKeys was actually using it.
54
55 Now, page 42, in the second reference, McKey get meat from
56 59 suppliers, and David Walker said that McKey visit
57 abattoirs once a month, but if they have got 59 suppliers,
58 that indicates they do not get through them all in a year.
59 Timothy Chambers though said that McKey visit Midland twice
60 a year. Midland is the largest abattoir supplying McKeys.
