Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL.
Stewart v. The Town of Paisley
Date: 28 December 1694
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Rankeiler reported the poor woman Stewart against the Town of Paisley. The Lords read the Act of Parliament; and found it was but a private act, and fell under the act salvo jure; and, though it gave them the privilege of the royal burrows to cite heritors of decayed tenements, within a year, to rebuild them; and, if they failed, then to appreciate, and either reedify them, or sell them to such as would: and therefore reponed her to her right; but the purchaser, who, on the faith of that act, had built, would get back his price, and allowance for all his meliorations. Some of the Lords thought she should have been first burdened to prove the two allegeances she founded on:—1mo. That the year and day when she was cited could not run against her, because she was then in Londonderry, and, being besieged, it was an insuperable impediment; 2do. That the Magistrates were in dolo, having sold it much cheaper than might have been got for it; and having concealed and kept up 250 merks of the price they received, like Ananias and Sapphira. But the plurality would not put her to that trouble and expense.
