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 REDUCTION

Jean Robertson
v.
William Fraser

Date: 19 February 1777

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Facility and lesion by themselves have not been held as sufficient grounds of reduction by the law of Scotland: fraud has been reckoned a necessary ingredient; at the same time, where the other two are great, a lesser degree of fraud will be sufficient, and will, in certain cases, be presumed: great facility and great lesion will presume fraud. The Lords, however, in some late cases, seem to hold that facility and lesion, even without fraud, are sufficient.

The case of Dallas against Dallas, and of Macdonald of Shian against Mac-Pherson of Killiehuntly, point this way.

The above reflections occurred in a case this day, under consideration of the Lords, viz. a reduction at the instance of Jean Robertson against William Fraser, for reducing a transaction between them with regard to Jean's share of a moveable succession to an uncle.

She appeared to be a weak woman, though not extraordinarily so; and the inequality of the bargain seemed, as it turned out, to be considerable; at the same time it was, in some respects, a bargain of chance. It had been transacted openly, not remotis arbitris, and was homologated and acquiesced in for years by Jean Robertson. A fraud was not alleged further than appeared from the nature of the transaction, which the Lord Monboddo, Ordinary, not thinking sufficient, refused to allow to the pursuer a proof of the reasons of reduction: But the Lords were of a different opinion, and allowed the proof before answer.

Lord Gardenston gave it as his opinion, that facility and lesion were, per se, grounds of reduction sufficient. The other Lords kept in general, and, on a division, allowed the proof.