Scottish Court of Session Decisions

On 29th November 1876 Mrs Mary Hume or Macdonald obtained decree of separation from her husband, with aliment at the rate of £40 per annum, payable half-yearly at Whitsunday and Martinmas. Macdonald was in business in Glasgow as a tailor, and he now alleged that he was unable to continue paying aliment to the amount decerned for owing to the depressed condition of his business, and that having failed to pay the amount due at Whitsunday last he was imprisoned in virtue of an extract-decree obtained by Mrs Macdonald. In these circumstances he presented this petition, in which he prayed the Court “to allow the petitioner a proof of his averments, if that should be found necessary, and to restrict the aliment to be paid by the petitioner to his said wife to £15 per annum as from and after Whitsunday last, and to find that the petitioner is only bound to pay aliment at said rate as from and after Whitsunday last, and to grant warrant for liberating the petitioner, reserving right to the petitioner or his said wife to apply to the Court to alter the rate of aliment if any change of circumstances should supervene; and to find the said Mrs Mary Hume or Macdonald liable in expenses in the event of her appearing to oppose the prayer hereof; or otherwise, to order the Deputy-Clerk Register, or other custodier thereof, to transmit the process in said action to the clerk at Lord Rutherfurd Clark's bar, and to remit this petition to Lord Rutherfurd Clark to proceed further herein as may be just; and meantime to grant interim warrant of liberation, and to decern.”

Mrs Macdonald lodged answers, in which she denied that the petitioner's circumstances were so reduced as to make it impossible to continue the payment of the aliment originally decerned for.

Doubts having been suggested as to the competency of this petition—