Scottish Court of Session Decisions

James Harley, tailor, Leven, Fifeshire, was appointed, on 25th February 1888, curator bonis to his niece Agnes Elder Scott, and factor loco tutoris to his nephews James Harley Scott and John Lindores Scott.

The petition for the appointment was presented by their mother, their uncle John Scott, and their uncle the said James Harley.

Their father Robert Scott, wine and spirit merchant, 1 Hope Street, Edinburgh, had left moveable property of the value of about £2800, and heritable property of the value of about £2000, but he had died intestate without having made any appointment of tutors or curators to his children, and their mother, who had been appointed executrix-dative qua relict, had an interest in the estate adverse to that of her childen.

By the interlocutor making the appointment the Lord Ordinary ( Trayner) fixed £3000 as the amount of caution to be found by the factor, and authorised a bond or policy for that amount of the National Guarantee and Suretyship Association (Limited) to be accepted and taken for him instead of a bond by a private individual.

Upon 17th March 1888 the factor presented a note to the Lord Ordinary, in which he stated that the National Guarantee and Suretyship Association (Limited) had declined to grant said bond or policy at a lower rate than 7s. 6d. per cent., or an annual premium of £11, 5s., which would absorb the greater part of his commission, and craved that a bond or policy for the same amount of the Sickness and Accident Assurance Association (Limited), with its head office at 1 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, which had offered to grant a bond or policy in similar terms to that granted by the said Guarantee Association, or in such other terms as his Lordship might approve, and that at an annual premium of 5s. per cent., or £7, 10s., might be accepted on his behalf.

Authorities cited — M'Kinnon, Petitioner, March 8, 1884, 11 R. 676; M'Kinnon, Petitioner, November 26, 1884, 12 R. 184.

The Lord Ordinary remitted the note to Mr John Galletly, S.S.C., to inquire and report.

Mr Galletly reported upon the Sickness and Accident Assurance Association (Limited) as follows:—“The company was incorporated on 17th April 1885 with a subscribed capital of £60,000, consisting of 12,000 shares of £5 each, whereof £1 per share is paid up, leaving an uncalled liability of £48,000. The reporter has gone carefully over the list of shareholders, 340 in number, and considers them a substantial body. There are only two or three holders of large numbers of shares, and these shareholders, so far as the reporter

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is aware, are men of considerable means, and quite good for any calls that may be made upon them. The directors are gentlemen of acknowledged ability and integrity, one-half of them being personally known to your reporter. The company has not yet been three years in existence, but it already appears to have established a safe and remunerative business. The premium income for last year as shown by the report amounted to over £14,500, whereof upwards of £330 consisted of premiums on guarantee policies. A dividend of three per cent, is payable to the shareholders within the next few days. The present selling price of the shares (£1 being paid as before mentioned) is about par. In addition to the uncalled capital of the company, amounting to £48,000, the policy holders have the further security of the invested funds of the company which amounted at 31st December last to about £6500. The bonds of the company have already been accepted by two Government Boards as guarantee (the Board of Inland Revenue and Local Government Board) for the intromissions of public officers, and also by the Court of Chancery in England, the Probate and Matrimonial Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland, and by different public boards, school boards, and parochial boards in Scotland. Having been so recently established, the reporter cannot say the company is of equal standing with the National Guarantee and Suretyship Association, whose bonds have been previously accepted by your Lordship, but he has no doubt of the sufficiency of the Sickness and Accident Assurance Association to meet all obligations undertaken by it, and is humbly of opinion that your Lordship may authorise a bond or policy by the company to be accepted on behalf of the curator as craved.”