Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Action of damages for assault, committed at a public meeting of the, inhabitants of Annan, and accompanied with abusive language. The pursuer was a surgeon in Annan. The defender was an advocate, and a justice of the peace for the county of Dumfries; he was also a landed proprietor. He was in the act of addressing the meeting regularly, and pertinently upon the subject regarding which it had been convened, when the pursuer interrupted him, by publicly imputing falsehood to his statements, in the most offensive maniner. Under the immediate influence of this provocation, the defender assaulted the pursuer, who offered no resistance; and the defender immediately afterwards stated to the meeting that he believed he had chastised one of the greatest blackguards of the neighbourhood.

In the defences to this action, the pursuer was charged with being a quarrelsome and vindictive person, who was addicted to the habit of grossly insulting those whom be disliked. It was also alleged, that, when he was a town-counsellor of Annan, he repeatedly insulted his brother counsellors, by calling them thieves and scoundrels, if they thwarted his views, and by carrying lethal weapons for the purpose of overawing them.

The following issues went to trial:—

“ Whether, at Annan, on or about the third day of November, 1834, the defender violently assaulted, and struck or kicked the pursuer, to his loss, injury, and damage?

“ Whether, at a public meeting of the inhabitants of the said burgh, held on the said day in the yard of the academy, the defender did falsely and calumniously say, in presence and hearing of the persons then and there assembled, that the pursuer was a blackguard, and the greatest blackguard in that part of the country, or did falsely and calumniously use or utter words to that effect, to the loss, injury, and damage of the pursuer? ”

The damages were laid at £500.

At the trial, the pursuer, inter alia, founded on the injurious terms of the defences as an aggravation of the injury which had given rise to the action. He led no evidence to show that the defender had been making a false statement at the time of the interruption.

The defender led no evidence.