Scottish Court of Session Decisions

The late Mrs Ramsay of Maxton possessed property in her own: right, yielding about £200 per annum, and she farther liferented property of her deceased husband, yielding between £1000 and £2000 a-year. In 1831, she executed a trust-deed of settlement, whereby, after diverse legacies, including one of £500 to the claimant, William Dickson Hagart, she appointed the trustees to make payment to her brother, Henry Hagart, now deceased, during all the days of his lifetime, after her death, “of the whole interest or free annual proceeds arising from my said trust-estate and effects, heritable and moveable, real and personal, before conveyed, after providing for the special purposes of the trust before specified.” Then there followed this bequest in favour of the claimant, William Dickson Hagart, (designed in the deed simply William Hagart,) natural son of Henry Hagart, above mentioned:—“Eighth, I direct my said trustees to keep a separate account of the rents, interests, dividends, or other annual proceeds arising upon my said trust-estate, from the term of Whitsunday or Martinmas immediately preceding my death, till the corresponding term in the following year: And I leave and bequeath to the said William Hagart, reputed natural son of the said Henry Hagart, the fee of that one full year's income, payable to him upon the death of the said Henry Hagart, the liferenter.”

The trustees were farther directed, on the death of Henry Hagart, to pay certain additional legacies of precise sums, (including a farther sum of £500 to William Dickson Hagart,) and to pay the free annual proceeds to her brother, William; and, on his death, to two other persons in succession, the fee of the residue being destined to the son of the last in order of these liferenters. By subsequent codicils, she bequeathed two additional legacies of £500 each to William Dickson Hagart, and she died in 1832, having been predeceased by her brother, Henry. It turned out that there was a shortcoming of funds to answer the legacies made payable subsequent to Henry Hagart's death, and the trustees having brought a process of multiplepoinding and exoneration, a dispute arose with the legatees subsequent to Henry Hagart's death, as to the bequest of the year's income in favour of William Dickson Hagart,—1. As to whether it included the whole yearly proceeds arising both from Mrs Ramsay's own property and that of her husband, or whether, in regard to the latter, it was not limited to the interest of the proceeds for the year in question, as itself a capital sum forming part of her stock, to the interest of which alone it was contended the bequest applied; and, 2. As to whether it was a special legacy, or was subject to the diminution occasioned by payment of the legacies payable immediately on the death of the testatrix, and of the testatrix's debts.

The Lord Ordinary, as to this matter, pronounced as follows, adding the subjoined note: ^*—“Finds that, under the eighth clause, and owing