Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION. reported by Alexander Tait, Clerk Of Session, One Of The Reporters For The Faculty.
Subject_2 FISHING.

Sir James Colquhoun
v.
Campbell of Stonefield

Date: 25 June 1777

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Sir James Colquhoun, and his predecessors, stood infeft in the salmon-fishing and other fishings of Loch-Lomond, “et ab illo lacu deorsum in fluvio de Leven ad mare saleum.” In a question betwixt Sir James and Mr Campbell of Stonefield, it came to be disputed what the boundaries of this fishing were,— whether they were the mouth of the river, where it emptied itself into the sea, or where the tide flowed, and the salt water met the fresh? As the proper contradictor in this process appeared to be the Town of Dumbarton, the Lord Monboddo, Ordinary, appointed Sir James to call the Town of Dumbarton into the process; to which the Lords adhered, (25th June 1777:) notwithstanding of the doctrine in Lord Kaimes's celebrated Treatise on the Jus Tertii, in which it is laid down, that, unless I can found upon a right in my own favours, I cannot found upon the interest of a third party as preferable to that of my antagonist. For, in this case, Stonefield founded on no right in his own favour, but only contended, that Sir James having no right to the fishing below where the tide flowed, it was not he, but the Town of Dumbarton, who had right to quarrel him.