Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE, LORD HAILES.
Subject_2 GROUNDS AND WARRANTS.
Subject_3 Disconformity in Warrants of Adjudication, appearing on production, after twenty years, not challengeable.

Timothy Lane
v.
Walter Campbell of Shaw-Field

Date: 16 January 1782

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[Fac. Coll. IX. 38; Dict. 5179.]

Braxfield. As long as a creditor keeps up an adjudication as a debt, he is obliged to produce the grounds of the adjudication; but, after twenty years he is not bound to produce the warrants. The Court never made any difference between general and special charges and steps of proceeding. Were any difference to be made, the charges ought rather to be produced, because they are part of the progress; and the creditor has less reason to complain, because he is in possession of them, although he is not of the steps of procedure. After twenty years, omnia prcesumuntur solenniter acta. There is another question, Whether objections may not be made against warrants, if produced? If the creditor produces them, objections may be made; because, by producing them, he is held to assert that they are true warrants. But the present case is different. The objector is not entitled to go to the record to search out papers, and to say, after the lapse of twenty years, “These are the warrants of your decreet.” The creditor may answer, that the warrant produced is not the warrant of the decreet on which he founds.

On the 16th January 1782, “The Lords found that the pursuers cannot, after the lapse of twenty years, object to warrants not produced by the defender;” adhering to the interlocutor of Lord Monboddo.

Act. D. Rae. Alt. Ilay Campbell.