A fair trial
.In the aftermath of the foot and mouth fiasco, with a leak at a government funded laboratory at Pirbright in Surrey the apparent source of the problem, reports seem to have found a "keystone cops" series of errors. Mr Füssel a senior European commission official, apparently described biosecurity at the site as a "parody" and looking at the conclusions of various official reports it is difficult to disagree with him.
The live virus was apparently flushed from a laboratory into a dilapidated and leaky drainage system. This contaminated adjacent construction site mud which was being transported off site for disposal. The lorries, whose loads of infected mud were uncovered, went past or near sites later found to be contaminated. Meanwhile Merial, the private company producing thousands of litres of live virus for vaccinations, failed to sterilise effluent fully before discharging it into the drains.
The fiasco was not yet complete. One month after the outbreaks there was an official declarationthat the country was clear of the disease. However foot and mouth can survive for: three days on soil in summer; 28 days on soil in autumn; up to 20 weeks on hay or straw; up to six months in slurry. No astonishment then that there was a further outbreak.
Weller & Co. v. Foot and Mouth Disease Research Institute [1966] 1 Q.B. 569 will doubtless be familiar to many readers. This was a trial which was dealt with upon certain assumptions of fact. The key one was that the laboratory at Pirbright had negligently allowed foot and mouth disease virus to escape with the effect, as they knew or ought to have known, that cattle in the neighbourhood became infected, the markets at Guildford and Farnham had to be closed and the plaintiff auctioneers lost profits. The claim foundered because the escape did not directly injure or threaten directly to injure, the plaintiff's person or property. The auctioneer never owned the cattle, nor was going to own them, but merely brokered sales This is a case regarding the parameters of recoverable economic loss, one public policy being to restrict the potential for economic loss being recoverable by indeterminable wide categories of persons. Whether the limits or applicability of this principle will be tested or not arising from the latest outbreak remains to be seen. It is however a problem that many potential claimants would have to overcome (although obviously not those farmers whose cattle were infected).
However much of a fiasco all that was, there is one point on which we can take comfort. Let us assume that all of the allegations were being made against a foreign company. Let us assume that the consequences of that foreign company’s acts potentially caused widespread hardship and loss to local people and businesses. When the case came to court, would the foreign company be fairly treated by the judge, and would it have the full benefit of legal principles applicable in its favour regardless of how unfortunately that might operate for British people and businesses? In other words, what is the integrity of the judiciary here? Would it be just as fair to a foreigner or a foreign company?
I do not think that anyone practising in the law would have the faintest doubt about the integrity of the judiciary and its fairness as between British and foreign. Whatever else may be said about the legal system, that is something of which we can be justifiably proud.