Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 POOR.

The Heritors in the Parishes or Melrose and Stitchell
v.
The Heritors in the Parish of Bowden

Date: 24 January 1786
Case No. No 16.

Poor children who have not resided three years in any parish, to be maintained by the parishes where they were born.

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John Robson, after having resided more than three years in the parish of Bowden, removed to that of Melrose, where one of his children was born. He afterwards resided for a year in the parish of Stitchell, in which place his wife bore him another child.

John Robson died soon after in great poverty; so that the question occurred, Whether the parish of Bowden, in which he had acquired a settlement, or those of Melrose and Stitchell, in which his children were born, were liable to their maintenance?

For the heritors of Melrose and Stitchell, it was

Pleaded; The parish in which a pauper has resided for the three years immediately preceding his poverty, and not that of his birth, has been found by the later decisions, to be burdened by law with his maintenance. This is founded on the act 1672, and in the reason of the thing; the expense occasioned by the poor being thereby devolved on that district, the inhabitants of which had been last benefited, in any considerable degree, by their industry 6th June 1745, Parish of Dunse, No 3. p. 10553.; 7th March 1767, Parish of Crailing, No 8. p. 10573.; 28th July 1779. Heritors of Coldingham contra Those of Dunse, No 13. p. 10582.; 14th June 1781, Waddel contra Heritors of Hutton, No 14. p. 10583.

The aliment due to the children of a pauper, who are not to be considered separately from himself, must be regulated in the same manner. It would indeed be most unreasonable, that on a father's becoming indigent, his children should be dispersed among all those parishes in which they happened to be born. Besides the inhumanity of such a regulation, the benefit of paternal admonition and example would in this way be lost, while the expense of supporting the children would on the whole be considerably increased.

Answered for the Heritors of Bowden; The rule adopted in the instances about referred to, is inadmissible in the present case, where the poor persons have not resided for the requisite space of time in any parish. Hence, therefore, the parish of the birth, as the primary and general place of settlement, can alone be liable.

The inconveniencies which have been figured to arise from this cannot have any weight. It is not indispensably necessary that the children should reside in the parish from whence they derive their support.

The Sheriff-depute of the county had found the parishes of Melrose and Stitchell liable respectively in the maintenance of the children born in the said parishes, ‘ in respect the children had not resided three years in any other parish.’

A bill of advocation was preferred, which was refused by the Lord Ordinary. And after advising a reclaiming petition, with answers, the Lords affirmed these judgments.

Lord Ordinary, Monboddo. For the parishes of Melrose and Stitchell, A. Fergusson. For that of Bowden, Claud Boswell. Fol. Dic. v. 4. p. 84. Fac. Col. No 248. p. 381.