Day 045 - 03 Nov 94 - Page 06

     
     1
     2        The implication has been given that anything in the leaflet
     3        could be used against us.  Therefore, we are under an
     4        obligation to defend anything in the leaflet.
     5
     6   MS. STEEL:   It is repeated in the Statement of Claim, that
     7        paragraph.
     8
     9   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  The whole leaflet is in the Statement of
    10        Claim, except for the last page.
    11
    12   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, may I intervene to say this, that, as
    13        your Lordship will see, our understanding of the law is
    14        that the court is entitled to award the Plaintiff damages
    15        for any meaning as high as or lower than the Plaintiff
    16        contends for, but not more injuries, from which it follows
    17        that the Defendant is entitled to seek to defend the words
    18        complained of in any meaning as high as or lower than the
    19        words complained are reasonably capable of bearing; which
    20        means, in my respectful submission, that, as your Lordship
         has just indicated, what I might call a following down a
    22        trail of red herrings about the merits or demerits in
    23        general of advertising or any particular advertising to
    24        children is not on the agenda, because that is not an
    25        allegation which the pamphlet directs at McDonald's in
    26        particular.  In this case, it is about McDonald's.
    27
    28   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You can address me on it in due course, but
    29        I would not have thought that saying that "we're all
    30        subject to the pressures of stupid advertising, consumerist
    31        hype", among other things, really advances what appears on
    32        the page under: "How do McDonald's deliberately exploit
    33        children?"
    34
    35        You see, you have asked quite a lot of questions of
    36        Mr. Green.  I am not interrupting to suggest that you
    37        should not ask any more or that you should only ask a few.
    38        I am only suggesting that you focus on particular matters
    39        rather than a general attack on advertising, because the
    40        leaflet does make specific allegations; and, indeed, your
         witnesses, whom I am going to hear probably next week, pick
    42        them up.
    43
    44   MS. STEEL:   I feel that this is really under the general sort
    45        of category about the deceptiveness and the disguising of
    46        what is really going on.
    47
    48   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  But let me just take you up on that in
    49        this way:  what you say is that advertising puts forward
    50        McDonald's as a lovely cosy institute.  On the other hand, 
    51        you say that McDonald's is practising all these nasty 
    52        things in a whole range of fields and ways.  You do not 
    53        actually have to cross-examine Mr. Green about that.  I can
    54        see what is on the ads and I can listen to and draw
    55        whatever conclusion I think is right on the evidence about
    56        McDonald's practices.
    57
    58        So that would be my answer to the point you have just
    59        made.  I do not think you actually have to cross-examine
    60        Mr. Green about that.