Day 091 - 17 Feb 95 - Page 07
1
2 MR. MORRIS: It probably will not last a week but we cannot say;
3 it might be prudent to arrange for someone ------
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What provisional arrangement could we
6 sensibly make for the end of that week?
7
8 MR. MORRIS: It might be prudent to arrange for someone for
9 Friday and I think that, yes.
10
11 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am not terribly willing to arrange for
12 somebody like Mr. Bowes to come back provisionally on
13 Friday.
14
15 MR. MORRIS: It would have to be provisional in any event.
16
17 MR. RAMPTON: Only to find when he gets here, or when he has
18 arranged to come, that the Defendants cannot finish
19 Dr. Gomez Gonzalez after seven days of cross-examination,
20 because that is what it will be.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The alternative is for me to say that they
23 not be allowed to cross-examine after such and such a time.
24 I will need considerable persuading to do that with
25 litigants in person, whatever I might do with counsel.
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: I know that, my Lord. I am not inviting your
28 Lordship to do that. All I will then say is that I do have
29 a responsibility for my witnesses, particularly those that
30 are not employed by McDonald's, and all I will say is that
31 if the Defendants will not guarantee to finish Dr. Gomez
32 Gonzalez by Thursday, 2nd March, then I will not put
33 anybody in on Friday and it will just have to remain blank
34 if they do finish and Mr. Bowes will have to come back at
35 some other stage.
36
37 As I say, the end of Thursday would be the sixth day of
38 cross-examination.
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That may be, but it is one thing to ask for a
41 guarantee, it is another to be as confident as one
42 reasonably can. I would have thought it highly unlikely
43 that cross-examination will go past the Thursday, quite
44 frankly. On that basis, even though there is no guarantee
45 that it will not, I would have thought it was reasonable to
46 put either Mr. Bowes or Dr. Pattison in on that day. It
47 matters not to me which it is.
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, it does not matter to me either but it
50 may matter to the witnesses, they are busy people.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It may. They can surely be asked. For
53 better or worse, McDonald's have got involved in this
54 litigation and they are employed by two of their greatest
55 suppliers. That is just the sort of thing which happens
56 like catching flu -- once you have caught it, there is
57 nothing you can do about it.
58
59 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am not disputing that at all. What
60 I do resent, if I may say so, is the way in which the
