Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL. Subject_2 I sat in the Outer-House this week.
William Cuthbertson v. Isabel Reid and James Bar
Date: 31 December 1701
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William Cuthbertson, merchant in Tranent, pursues Isabel Reid and James Bar, Albany herald, her husband, for £219, as the price of goods delivered by him to the said Isabel Reid's father, before the Sheriff of Edinburgh; and adducing two witnesses to prove the delivery of the goods, Bar objected against them, That they could not be received, because they had appeared partial, and too zealously concerned, in having come from Dunse, where they dwell, to Edinburgh, on a letter wrote to them by Cuthbertson, the pursuer, desiring them to come, to the effect that he, finding them in town, might give them a citation to be witnesses in his action against Reid; and so, being ultroneous, were not receivable; and though they acknowledged, upon oath, that he had invited them in, and accordingly they had come and got their copies to appear as witnesses, yet the Sheriff had received them as habile and competent. Bar raises advocation, in respect the Sheriff had committed iniquity in sustaining them.
Answered,—All he did was legal,—to write to them, to know when their other business would call them in to Edinburgh, that, on their incoming, he might cite them; seeing they lived without the Sheriff's territory, and so could not be cited without a supplement.
The Lords considered, If they sustained the reason of advocation on iniquity, then it rejected the witnesses; therefore they caused the Ordinary try if they would advocate of consent; in which case they would ordain them to be reexamined, and to produce the letter inviting them in, if so be they had it.
