Day 103 - 14 Mar 95 - Page 03
1 are actually ordered to be brought to court because the
2 rights of parties to litigation are not the be and end all
3 of rights in this country, but I have not looked all that
4 up again. You will have to try to find it in the White
5 Book.
6
7 A situation where it used to occur but, as a matter of
8 practice no longer arises, is where, for instance, someone
9 who had suffered a misadventure under medical treatment
10 wanted to sue, perhaps, a doctor and records were held by a
11 Health Authority which had absolutely nothing to do with
12 that case and they wanted to get the medical records of
13 them.
14
15 Quite frankly, you have to get started on that. I will
16 give you any help I can once you have got started. I am
17 reluctant to find myself in the position, as I have said
18 before, where I am advising one party or the other on what
19 to do in their best interests because, although I do not
20 want you to be at a disadvantage because you are not
21 legally qualified, I would put myself in an unenviable
22 position if I start to try to help you as one of the
23 parties to the action.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: If the relevance of the documents is a sort of
26 basic point in the application that we may make or may find
27 out about, it might be helpful if it was recognised by
28 yourself that the documents, meaning the carcass
29 temperature file, taken by our witness Miss Hovey were
30 clearly relevant to this case. Then we can say -----
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think you have to identify as specifically
33 as you can the precise documents. It is a start, but it
34 may not be much help just to say "a particular file"
35 because a file may include a whole lot of documents, some
36 of which are relevant, some of which are not, some of which
37 are in the power of one person and some of which are in the
38 power of another.
39
40 I think the best thing is to continue with Dr. Pattison.
41 I may give it a bit more thought over the mid-day
42 adjournment and say more then if I have time.
43
44 The third category of case which I had in mind, in fact,
45 relates only to personal injury actions.
46
47 MR. MORRIS: That is the special statutory provision ones?
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That special statutory provision under the
50 Supreme Court Act. It only relates to personal injury
51 matters, but if you wanted to look at it, you would find it
52 dealt at Order 24 r.7A, page 158 and following of the
53 up-to-date White Book. Look also at Order 38 r.13 and,
54 particularly, the first note to that and come back to me,
55 if you want.
56
57 At this stage in the proceedings, before I start making
58 orders against people who are not actually parties to the
59 proceedings, it may very well be that I would want to hear
60 the evidence of any relevant witnesses called by the actual
