Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, collected by JAMES BURNETT, LORD MONBODDO.

Geddie
v.
Somerville

Date: 23 November 1743

Click here to view a pdf copy of this documet : PDF Copy

[Elch., No. 16, Deathbed.]

The Lords found that a man might give to his wife, (or to any other,) a faculty to dispone his heritage etiam in articulo mortis, and that the grant of such a faculty in liege poustie did not fall under the law of deathbed, though the faculty was exercised on deathbed. If the words had been “at any time during her life,” the decision would have been the same; but it is presumed the decision would have been different if the husband had, instead of the faculty, given the property of the subject to his wife, with a power to dispone on deathbed, since that would be a power to frustrate her own heirs, contrary to the public law; whereas in the present case she had only a power to take the estate from the heirs of her husband, which he might grant in liege poustie.— Actor, William Grant.

The question, where the fee was, whether in the husband or wife, was here very learnedly debated.—See the papers.