Day 172 - 12 Oct 95 - Page 37
1 attached to it in due course, which is another
2 consideration. You can argue in due course that people
3 would only work more than 39 hours without getting above
4 the normal rate because they need the money.
5
6 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I would have thought you needed evidence for
9 that.
10
11 MR. MORRIS: Well, the reference on the continuation statement
12 to "common knowledge" could refer to that managers would
13 often say it, that it just came out of crew meetings. It
14 is not that you would have to remember any particular
15 individual that said it at a particular day; it is just
16 something which everybody knew. Obviously, I mean, on
17 terms of over 39 hours, it could have come from the
18 schedules anyway. But Mr. Rampton described that as tittle
19 tattle. But in this case a lot of the Plaintiff's
20 evidence, or alleged evidence, has seemed to have come from
21 management culture, hearsay and folklaw, and all kinds of
22 presumptions and suppositions. I do not see why, if that
23 is going to be allowed, that a workplace culture should not
24 contain common knowledge as long as it is focused and based
25 upon some real source, you know, in terms of -- well, it
26 would be expected that people would look at the schedules
27 every week and that would just be -- every worker would
28 look at the schedules every week, and the fact that they do
29 not say that in their statement, it should still be assumed
30 that every worker that gives evidence will have looked at
31 the schedules every week and they would notice obviously
32 not just their own, they would notice from time to time
33 what other people were doing; they probably would compare.
34 That is just common sense. So that is all I am saying.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am for you on that. What troubles me is
37 their reasons for doing it. I have difficulty in
38 understanding why you are being so tenacious about hanging
39 on it, because you have plenty of admissible evidence in
40 the case which you can ask me to infer this from.
41
42 MR. MORRIS: Yes, I know. I am being tenacious because
43 Mr. Rampton is being tenacious.
44
45 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, that is extremely unfair. If Mr. Morris
46 had not wanted to read out these statements, I would not
47 have made any objection at all. I have said from the
48 outset that I do not care how much hearsay your Lordship
49 reads. It will not affect your Lordship's mind any more
50 than it affects mine. What I do object to is Mr. Morris
51 using this courtroom as a platform for information -- and I
52 do not call it evidence -- which is both objectionable and
53 prejudicial. Your Lordship it was who invited me to make
54 these objections. I did not proffer them myself.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think it is only too right that you should
57 make them, because ---
58
59 MR. RAMPTON: Good.
60
