Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE, LORD HAILES.
Subject_2 COMMUNITY.
Subject_3 Magistrates, charged to pay a sum due by bond granted by them in their corporate capacity, were found entitled to suspension, without caution, on granting conveyance of or security on the Town's funds, - not being personally liable, except while in office and while the funds are under their administration.

James Livy
v.
David Mudie, &c

Date: 6 August 1774

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[Faculty Collection, VI. 353; Dictionary, 2512.]

Coalston. A bond granted by magistrates, as representing the community, makes the community the debtor. The charge ought to have been against the present magistrates. The magistrates may be free by giving up the funds of the community: they are not personally bound to pay the debt. This charge is not against the magistrates for the time being. There is another ground, that the granters of the bond were guilty of fraud by borrowing money when they knew that the burgh was bankrupt. But that will not do in the present shape: the question must be tried by a common action.

On the 6th August 1774, “the Lords passed the bill without caution;” altering Lord Kennet's interlocutor on advising with the Lords.

Act. A. Elphinston. Alt. A. Lockhart.