Scottish Court of Session Decisions

This is a litigation which has been going on for some time between the Earl of Moray and the

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minister of the parish of Dalgetty as to a grass glebe. In 1862 the minister got from the Presbytery of Dunfermline the designation of a grass glebe out of the Earl of Moray's lands. The Earl suspended on the following grounds—viz., 1st, The lands designed are not church lands; 2d, they are not grass lands, but arable; and 3d, the minister has already a grass glebe, which was designed to him in 1770. On this latter point considerable litigation took place, and ultimately the Inner House found for the minister, with expenses from the date of closing the record. The Earl then came forward and offered to the minister land adjoining his present glebe for grass for a horse and two cows, as the same should be fixed on by arbiters mutually chosen. He also agreed to give remuneration for the time the minister had lain out of grass, and it was agreed that the Lord Ordinary should decide the matter of expenses, in so far as not already fixed. The arbiters allowed seven acres imperial of land next the present glebe in lieu of that originally designed by the Presbytery, and £24 per annum as a surrogatum for the want of grass since the Presbytery's designation, and the case came to-day before the Lord Ordinary for the decision of the question of expenses. It was contended for the Earl of Moray that his whole pleas in the suspension had not been discussed; in particular, that the land originally designed by the Presbytery had not been proved to be grass land, and that the agreement by the Earl to give other lands and a surrogatum for the want of grass was such a compromise of the case as entitled him to be relieved of expenses, or, at all events, to have them greatly modified.