Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 20

     
     1        which is what the whole of this submission is devoted to --
     2        the truth of the matter on the evidence is that the meaning
     3        is miles outside the true facts, leaving aside the question
     4        of the relationship between diet and health, which is an
     5        another question which is partly dealt with by admission,
     6        but only partly; the whole of the diet and frequency
     7        question is devoted to resolving in the Plaintiffs' favour
     8        the question of to what extent (if any) is the meaning
     9        true; because if the meaning, as it were, leaves a field of
    10        danger (which it does), everything from "occasionally"
    11        onwards within that boundary is a minefield, then the
    12        evidence shows that the warning signs of the entry to the
    13        minefield are false; it is not a minefield at all.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  It is a matter I will have to give
    16        further thought to.
    17
    18   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Leading on from that, really, it seemed to me
         that part of Ms. Steel's and Mr. Morris's argument is this,
    22        that you may not eat McDonald's food very often but, things
    23        being what they are, people who go into McDonald's even,
    24        say, once a week or once a fortnight or once every three
    25        weeks, are likely to have a diet which is bordering on or
    26        high in fat, et cetera, and low in, et cetera, and I do not
    27        think they looked at it in quite this way by Bonnington
    28        Castings' judgment of what causation is in law:  anything
    29        which makes a material contribution to the end result
    30        causes it.
    31
    32   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, that is all -----
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What, if anything, is the answer to that?
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:  The answer -- I cannot remember what that case is
    37         -- I have dealt with this, I am afraid, at some length on
    38        pages 54 and 55, in fact, 54 to 58, starting at paragraphs
    39         -----
    40
    MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Let me turn those up.
    42
    43   MS. STEEL:   Can I just what that judgment was about?
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I forget the full name of it, but it is
    46        called Bonnington Castings.  You really need not worry
    47        about it.  By all means, look it up if you want to.  But,
    48        in personal injury litigation, you frequently get the
    49        problem where someone suffering a certain adverse
    50        environment -- for instance, working in a dusty environment 
    51        which is due to the negligence of the employer -- ends up 
    52        with lung disease; and there are all sorts of problems in 
    53        showing that it is the dust caused by the employer's
    54        negligence rather than other factors in the environment
    55        which are not due to the employer's negligence which have
    56        actually caused the lung disease which is the foundation of
    57        the action for personal injury.  What Bonnington Castings
    58        in effect, says -- if I remember it correctly -- is, if the
    59        results of the negligence have made a material
    60        contribution, albeit with other factors, to the adverse