Day 172 - 12 Oct 95 - Page 30
1 problem about paragraph 19, but one has to read the first
2 sentence of 19: "No one ever mentioned a trade union while
3 I was there"; and then towards the end of that paragraph --
4 well, he starts in the middle: "The foreign employees were
5 not interested in anything like unions. They just wanted
6 the work. Other employees were not interested either.
7 Unions were just not an issue which seemed at all relevant
8 to anybody at McDonald's"; and then he says something about
9 Ireland. Then one finds this at the beginning of
10 paragraph 20: "I have no doubt that if anybody in the store
11 had joined the union, the company would have got rid of
12 that employee as soon as possible."
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Where is the part you want to exclude
15 starting, then: "foreign employees"?
16
17 MR. RAMPTON: No, I do not want to exclude that. I read that
18 for the context of the sentence I do want to exclude, which
19 is the first sentence of paragraph 20, which, in the light
20 of what is written in paragraph 19, must just be the
21 wildest speculation. As he said, it is just not something
22 that ever cropped up at Marble Arch, it was not an issue,
23 nobody talked about it, nobody was interested. So he is in
24 no position to say that he is in no doubt that if anybody
25 in the store had joined the union the Company would
26 have -----
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let me read that page again. (Pause) Is it a
29 ground for excluding it, that he may have no basis for it?
30
31 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, because then it must be speculation. If out
32 of his own mouth he has explained why there is no basis for
33 it, it can only be speculation. If he had said, "I
34 remember hearing a manager say to employee X, 'Look, mate,
35 you are out because you have joined a trade union'", that
36 would be quite different, but what he actually says is that
37 it was never a topic at all.
38
39 My Lord, then there is a piece which I think your Lordship
40 mentioned on a previous occasion, I cannot remember. It is
41 the second part of paragraph 20, beginning with the words
42 "Ray Kroc", and that is all the way down to the end of the
43 paragraph. It is quite plainly a mixture of really
44 pernicious hearsay and speculation on the part of the
45 witness. It speaks -- and this is of course a comment,
46 even if it is excluded, which is always open to me to make
47 at the end of the case -- it speaks volumes for
48 Mr. Magill's, what shall we say, credibility of this kind.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, but if I take it out I cannot take
51 account of it.
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: I wonder if that is right? The fact that a person
54 has made a statement which is not admissible in evidence of
55 the facts stated does not prevent me from drawing attention
56 to what he has said.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Then you have to have it in evidence that he
59 said it. There is no evidence that he said it unless it is
60 read out, is there?
