Isabel Livingston and John Nairn v. Helen Livingston
Date: 19 February 1702 Case No. No 37.
A disposition originally blank in the name, and filled up with new ink, was reduced, unless it could be proved, that it had been filled up, and so read to the granter in liege poustie.
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Tillicoultry reported Isabel Livingston, and John Nairn her husband, against Helen Livingston her sister, and relict of William Crawfurd.—It is a reduction of a disposition of a tenement of land made by Isabel Simpson, their mother, in favour of the said Helen, at the instance of the said Isabel, as heirportioner served to her mother. The reasons, were, that, by ocular inspection, the name of the receiver of the disposition has been originally blank, and appears to have been lately filled up with new ink, though it is dated in 1671; that it has been designed for a man, it all along bearing his, which is now vitiated, and made hers; that, for 25 years the mother lived, there was never a syllable of this right, nor for two years after, and was found blank in the name among the mother's papers by the said William Crawfurd, who intromitted therewith, and has been filled up by him with his wife's name, and so was never a delivered evident, nor did so much as bear a reservation of liferent to the mother, the granter, and certainly has either been filled up on death-bed, or after her decease; and one of the two subscribing witnesses is not designed.— Answered, Its being blank is of no moment, being long before the act of Parliament discharging blank writs; neither does the vitiation import, not being in parte substantiali; and though it appears that this disposition has been drawn and designed for some other end and use at first, seeing it bears onerous causes, which is not presumed to have been given by a daughter in familia yet what hindered the mother to fill up her said daughter's name in the blank, which held in the pains of transcribing and altering the writ? And this deed needed no clause dispensing with the not delivery; and they would design the witness, it being before the act of Parliament 1681, declaring the want of designation now unsuppliable.—The Lords sustained the reasons, and reduced the disposition, unless the defender, in fortification thereof, would offer to prove that her name was filled up therein, and was so read and seen when her mother was in liege poustie, and before she came to be on death bed.
Fol. Dic. v. 2. p. 214. Fountainhall, v. 2. p. 148.
