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Subject_1 ALIMENT. Subject_2 Of the act 1491, cap. 25. anent alimenting of Heirs. Subject_3 Import of the Act:
It is ordained, that where any lands happen to fall in ward to the King, or any baron of the realm, spiritual or temporal, or lands given in conjunct fee or liferent, as well as to burgh as to land, that the sheriff of the shire or bailies shall take surety of the person or persons, that gets or has such wards, that they shall not waste or destroy their biggings, orchards, woods, stanks, parks, meadows, or dovecots, but that they hold them in such kind as they are in the time that they receive the same; they taking their reasonable sustentation, or using, in needful things, without destruction or wasting thereof. “And an reasonable living to be given to the sustentation of the air, after the quantitie of the heritage, gif the said air has na blanche ferme, nor feu ferme land, to susteine him on, alsweil of the ward lands, that fallis to our Soveraine Lordis hands, as onie uther barronne, spiritual or temporal.”
Scots Acts, v. 1. p. 158.
L Ramornay v. Law
Date: 21 July 1636 Case No. No 10.
Aliment refused to an heir of perfect age, and bred a writer; the whole rents being liferented.
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The young Laird of Ramornay being married upon the Bishop of Glasgow's daughter, and he dying without bairns, his brother succeeding to his fee, pursues his father, and the brother's relict, who had all the liferent of the whole lands, for a modification. And the relict alleging, That no part could come off her, for modification; because she having paid a competent tocher of 8000 merks, for her liferent of ten chalders victual, granted to her in conjunct-fee, and contracted to her by the pursuer's father, by her contract of marriage; which the said pursuer's father is obliged to warrant to her; and the pursuer being bred up with a writer, and now a man of perfect age, he ought to do for himself; at the least he ought to seek his father, who, in nature, is bound for aliment to his son.——The Lords, in respect of the allegeance, assoilzied the relict, and found no modification ought to be granted, of her part of the lands liferented by her; for which they found, That the acts of Parliament, which were the grounds of this pursuit, could be no warrant to sustain this action against her: And as to the father, albeit the father, by the law of nature, is obliged to nourish his son quoad alimentum; yet they found, That this act of Parliament could not be any ground to maintain this action against the father, to compel him to pay any thing out of that part of his liferent lands, for his son's entertainment, except that he might shew some other reason to induce it, as that the father had kythed some unnatural and inhuman dealing to the son, and had refused him his ordinary maintenance.
Act. ——Alt. Murray
Fol. Dic v. 1. p. 29. Durie, p. 819.*** Spottiswood reports the same case thus:
Mr George Heriot, as heir to his brother Walter Heriot, fiar of Ramorney, pursued his father, Walter Heriot of Ramorney, and Jean Law, his brother's relict, liferenters of the whole lands, to which he was to succeed, for a modification whereupon to live.——The Lords would not sustain the summons against his brother's relict, because his father, who was liferenter of the one half, was alive, who was bound, by the law of nature, to entertain him, and not his sister-in-law, who had her liferent of the other half for an onerous cause, in recompence of her debt.—As for the father, the pursuer insisted not much against him.
