Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Action of damages (laid at £2000), for an alleged assault on the pursuer by the defender, by violently turning him out of a meeting of road-trustees, of which both parties were constituent members.

The defence given in was in these terms:—“The pursuer, who purchased the estate of Rathobank a few years ago, has almost ever since chosen to display his landed dignity by behaving in a very provoking and offensive manner to the road-trustees of the district, whom he has been in the habit of unjustly accusing of all manner of improprieties, and of inciting others so to accuse. At last, at a meeting of these trustees held in the County Rooms, Edinburgh, on the 20th of March last, he was pleased to exceed even his ordinary bounds of rudeness and disrespect. He first charged them, or some of them, with being in the practice of ‘concocting’ the minutes to answer their own purposes, or with abetting the clerk (a gentleman of great respectability), in doing so; and then he gave one of them, who was understood either to be Sir Alexander Maitland Gibson, the convener, or the defender, the lie, by telling him that what he was saying was ‘a direct falsehood,’ or by using words of this import. He did not do this from any provocation, or under any momentary passion, but coolly and insolently, and when an opportunity was afforded him to retract or apologize, he refused or declined in a provoking manner. He was then told that he could not be allowed to remain in the room with gentlemen, since he could not behave like one; and he was invited to go forth. He persisted in remaining. The door was then opened, and those who were present are the only persons who can tell candidly what took place. The defender denies that he ‘violently seized him by the arms,’ or ‘thrust him out of the room.’ The facts would have justified both of these operations, or any extrusion, however summary. But there was no seizing, and no thrusting, and no violence of any kind. The pursuer soon saw that go he must, and that the more quietly he went the better. His conscience, too, by this time began to make him more moveable, and he relieved them of his presence without the necessity of any bodily force whatever. In showing him to the door, the defender acted with the perfect approbation of the whole company.”