Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Andrew Steuart of Auchlunkart, in the county of Banff, presented a note of suspension and interdict against Alexander Souter, collector of county road assessment under the Banffshire Roads Act 1866, craving suspension of certain assessments levied under the Act, in respect of certain lands of which he was proprietor, amounting

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to £121, 3s. 9d., and of a summary warrant threatened to be obtained for enforcing payment of these assessments. He also craved interdict against the respondent's levying or collecting the assessments. In February 1877 the Lord Ordinary on the Bills passed the note; and in June thereafter the complainer raised an action of declarator and interdict, based on the same allegations as those on which he founded the petition for interdict and suspension.

The circumstances which gave rise to these proceedings were, inter alia, as follows:—By the Banffshire Roads Act 1866, the Road Trustees were directed to impose a certain rate of assessment at their annual general meeting at Michaelmas of each year on all lands and heritages within the county. By section 72 of the Act, all assessments under the authority of the said Act were to be deemed and taken to be for the year from the 26th day of May immediately preceding to the 26th day of May subsequent to the date of imposing the same, and shall be payable at such date as may be fixed by the trustees. The collector was directed, under sections 73 and 74, to make up assessment rolls and to give notice to the ratepayers, distinguishing the assessments for maintenance of roads from that for reducing debt (section 75). The assessments were to be levied from the proprietors, with relief as to the half of the maintenance assessment against their tenants (section 70). Further, by section 79, if such assessments were not paid within one month after the date of payment fixed by the trustees, interest at 5 per cent, per annum was chargeable until payment.

Mr Steuart received notices requiring him to make payment of the various assessments on his lands, amounting to £121, 3s. 9d. They were dated 20th November 1876, and the time of payment was stated to be 1st December 1876. No place of payment was specified. The following explanation was added:—

“These assessments are all declared by the Commissioners of Supply and Road Trustees to be due and payable on the 1st December next, and as the full amount to be collected has to be disbursed ‘twixt that date and the 20th, the collector hopes that as in former years prompt payment will be made.”

It appeared, however, that while 55 landed proprietors, whose assessments amounted to £4677, received notice in these terms, there was a body of feuars and others in the various villages in the county, numbering 3450 individuals, who paid assessments varying from a few pence to four or five shillings in amount, the whole sum leviable from them being £823. These feuars received notices intimating that their assessments had been imposed and declared payable on 1st December, but that collection thereof would be made at a specified place on a specified day in March. If the parties called, however, these assessments might be paid at the collector's office in Banff at any previous date.

The explanation given by the collector on record was as follows:—“It would create great inconvenience to require parties throughout the whole county to pay the small sums of assessments due for house property at the collector's office in Banff. The landed proprietors pay six-sevenths of the whole assessment. With regard to the remaining one-seventh part, payable by house property, the collector makes collections at various convenient places throughout the county, and as the state of the weather during the first months of the year is so uncertain and usually so severe as to make these collections during said months inconvenient and often impracticable, the collector has usually postponed these collections until March. In thus acting, the collector has simply tried to meet the public convenience, and facilitate an easy collection of the money. This practice has been well known to the landed proprietors and others in the county, and instead of being objected to, it has been universally approved. The practice in no way affects the imposition of the assessment, and is a mere incident of the collector's system of collection.”

The complainer presented the note on the ground that the collector's proceedings were wrongful and invalid, in respect that while the statute enjoined that the assessments should be imposed at one equal rate, he deferred his demand in the case of these feuars till March. He also failed to require from them payment of interest on their assessments where thus overdue, and so caused those who paid in December a loss corresponding to the amount of relief to which they would severally have been entitled if interest had been demanded. The conclusions of the action of declarator and interdict were of a similar nature.