Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 FALSA DEMONSTBATIO.

Macdonald of Clanronald, Jun
v.
His Majesty's Advocate

1751. December 20, 21.
Case No. No. 2.

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Donald Macdonald of Clanronald, jun. son of Donald Macdonald of Clanronald, being by act of Parliament attainted of high treason, two claims were presented, one in the name of the said Donald Macdonald the father claiming the liferent, which was not opposed by the Crown's lawyers, and another for Donald Macdonald his eldest son, now in France, (from whom a factory was produced) claiming the fee of the estate of Clanronald, which had been surveyed by the Barons of Exchequer. Answered, The claimant is the person attainted by the act, though by mistake he is called Donald instead of Ronald, which is only the variation of one letter, D for R. The claimant produced his charter, which was to Donald Macdonald, his grandfather in liferent, and after him to Ronald Macdonald, his father, the other claimant, and to this claimant Ronald and his issue in fee, whom failing to his brother Donald, &c. and the Court sustained the claim. Renitente Leven and Justice Clerk, (but President and Kilkerran were absent.) We thought that it was improper to speak of nullities or misnomers in attainders by act of Parliament, for acts of Parliament must bind all the subjects where it certainly and legally appears who was the person meant; and that was the case of Lord Pitsligo, which though it was not the title in his patent, yet it was the name he was universally known by, that he assumed to himself in the most solemn deeds, and that was commonly given to him even in the records of Parliament, and that therefore agreed wholly to him, and to no other, which was legal evidence of the person intended by the act; none of which they applied to this case, where the two names are as truly different as Thomas and Alexander were in the ease of Auchintoul; and that known to the Legislature, for both names are contained in this very act; and therefore, though I was of the minority in this Court in the case of Pitsligo, yet I was for sustaining the claim. (See Dict. No. 8. p. 4162.)