Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 COALIER.

Sir James Clark
v.
Ker and Penman

Date: 5 December 1764
Case No. No 11.

What made a coalier a bondsman.

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A boy who enters into a coal-work where his father is a bondsman, becomes a slave, not by consent, but from the nature of the slavery, which extends from father to son; and from which rule practice has introduced an exception with respect to children that abstain from working.

The coal-work to which Ker and Penman, two lads under age, were bound with their fathers, being wrought out, these lads took employment in a neighbouring coal-work belonging to Sir James Clark, but without binding themselves as slaves. Having afterwards left the work, Sir James claimed them in a process as his bondsmen; and they were assoilzied upon the following medium, that if a man of full age, whether a freeman, or bound to another coal, enter into a coal-work without any paction of slavery, his working for whatever time will not make him a bondsman; and that the argument concludes a fortiori in favour of the defenders, who are under age.

Sel. Dec. No 227. p. 297.