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.
Sir J Whiteford v. the Laird of Lamington
Date: 26 February 1675 Case No. No 20.
The mother only liable, not the grand-father, whether the mother liferented the residue of the estate, not enjoyed by the grand-father by reservation.
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Sir John Whiteford having married the Lady Lamington, pursues the Laird of Lamington, her son, for several particulars, whereof one was for his aliment from his birth till he was 14 years of age.—The defender alleged absolvitor, because the Lady Lamington liferented all the estate in which his father died, in fee, and so she was obliged to aliment him.—It was answered, That his grand-father being alive, and having a plentiful estate, and having only provided three or four thousand merks a-year to his son and his wife, his grand-father was obliged to aliment him; and if he himself had pursued his grand-father for aliment, or his mother, who was at the expences of the same, Lamington would have been liable; and so this Lamington, as being his heir, must now be liable for the whole, or at least for a proportionable part, effeirand to his estate and her estate; and the Lords in many cases had found not only the lady liferenter, but the grand-father, liable.—The defender replied, That a grand-father was never found liable for any part of the apparent heir's aliment, unless the grand-father had liferented an estate, whereof the grand-child was fiar; for liferenters are only liable by the act of Parliament to aliment the fiar, whose Whole fee is liferented; so that the Lady having liferented all, whereof this Lamington is fiar, she is solely liable for his aliment, and not his grand-father, who provided a considerable part of his estate to his son and his heirs.
The Lords found the Lady liferenter only liable for her son's aliment, and therefore assoilzied the son from any modification upon the account of any entertainment given by her or her second husband.
