Day 236 - 17 04 96 - Page 20

 
 

                                                                  Day 236
 
 
 
 
 
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  If I made an application to your Lordship it would
     2        be on the basis I will have, I hope, the final version of
     3        the report of the person concerned who is in fact a
     4        Professor of Nutrition; not Professor Weelock, I hope
     5        within the next couple of days.  I have seen a draft and he
     6        has gone away to polish it.  So I hope that will be in my
     7        hands over the next few days.  I will then decide whether
     8        I need to make the application.  If I do, it will be on the
     9        basis that the position, the framework of the case has
    10        changed since we had your Lordship's ruling, because the
    11        opinion of the new witness will be addressed to the issues
    12        raised by your Lordship's ruling on meaning and nothing
    13        else.  Nothing that, as it were, already been in the case
    14        and does not need to be repeated.
    15
    16   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  Can you produce it by the end of next
    17        week so that the Defendants and I can have a look at it
    18        before you make your application?
    19
    20   MR. RAMPTON:  I would not disclose it if I was not going to make
    21        the application.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I know, but so that the Defendants and myself
    24        can think about its ramifications before you actually make
    25        the applications, as it were, because it does not seem to
    26        me to be very satisfactory to say -- I do not think this is
    27        what you intend -- "This is the statement.  I now apply for
    28        leave to --"
    29
    30   MR. RAMPTON:  I would not do that.  I would say, "Here is a
    31        statement and we shall apply to the judge at the earliest
    32        possible opportunity for leave to call this evidence".
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Can you produce that statement before the end
    35        of next week?
    36
    37   MR. RAMPTON:  I confidently expect so.
    38
    39   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    40
    41   MR. RAMPTON:  Can I add this in the sense I am foreshadowing
    42        what I might say on an application for leave, what your
    43        Lordship has done, which is appropriated by the Defendants
    44        application to strike out our case on nutrition.  It was
    45        not, as it were, a free or voluntary act, not unprompted,
    46        what in fact has happened is this is the reason why the
    47        Defendants I do believe need to contemplate whether the
    48        position having changed quite radically, what has happened
    49        is that, which virtually never happens in defamation
    50        action, is that the parties know before the end of the case 
    51        what the meaning is.  In the normal case one focuses on 
    52        aims one has; one guesses the court is going to find at the 
    53        end of the case.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I know.  I think it is going to happen more
    56        and more often.  In fact, it is possible it may happen in
    57        the very next court in another.
    58
    59   MR. RAMPTON:  It may do.  In cases with a judge alone, there is
    60        no difficulty,  but the majority of defamation actions are
 
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