Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION reported by SIR ROBERT SPOTISWOODE OF PENTLAND.
Subject_2 Such of the following Decision as are of a Date prior to about the year 1620, must have been taken by Spotiswoode from some of the more early Reporters. The Cases which immediately follow have no Date affixed to them by Spotiswoode.

Chrystie
v.
Jack

Date: 4 June 1631

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In an action of reduction of a comprising between Chrystie and Jack, the reason being, that, in leading of the comprising, the party from whom the tenements (which lay in Dundee,) were comprised, being for the time out of the country, he was not lawfully warned at the pier and shore of Leith, according to the common custom, but at the shore of Dundee, which he had no warrant for;—Answered, 1st, There being no law for summoning of parties out of the country at the shore of Leith, but only a custom without any warrant, it could not oblige all the lieges to follow it; but, in our case, the compriser had done the equivalent or more; for, summons being only for that use, that the party may be certified of that which was doing, the defender had summoned him at the shore of Dundee, where was the debtor's residence and dwelling-place before his going off the country, and where his friends and kindred dwelt, by whose means he might get better notice of his summoning than if it had been made at Leith: And where the received custom was obtruded,—Answered, 2d, Nothing can be called a custom, but that which hath been drawn in question in judicio contradictorio, and maintained; which is not here. The Lords sustained the reason of reduction.

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