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Scottish Court of Session Decisions >>
Helen Adam v Sir Andrew Lauder of Fountainhall. [1762] Mor 398 (1 March 1762)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/1762/Mor0100398-026.html Cite as:
[1762] Mor 398
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.
Helen Adam v. Sir Andrew Lauder of Fountainhall
Date: 1 March 1762 Case No. No 26.
The proprietor of an entailed estate, found obliged to aliment his son's wife.
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Sir Andrew Lauder's eldest son, a lad of twenty, living in familia with his father, made a runaway marriage with Helen Adam, a servant maid of the house; and immediately after quitted her, and went off to the East Indies, where he settled.
Helen Adam brought an action of aliment against Sir Andrew, his father, possessed of an entailed estate of L. 250 clear rent.
Objected by Sir Andrew, 1mo, He has but a small estate, and eleven younger children, without one penny to give them, except what he can gather by his annual savings, seeing his estate is entailed. In such a situation, the law could not mean to subject the father to the aliment of his eldest son's wife.
2do, At any rate, the son is primarily liable, the father only subsidiarie; but the pursuer, as yet, has not brought any action of aliment against her husband.
The Lords found the defender liable to aliment.
Act. Jo. Dalrymple.Alt. R. Bruce.
Fol. Dic. v. 3. p. 22. Fac. Col. No 86. p. 190.
