Scottish Court of Session Decisions

On the 21st February 1903 David Wallace Foreman, master mariner, St Andrews, Fifeshire, and John William Bell, farmer, Kilconquhar, Fifeshire, the registered owners of the ketch “T. W. Ashton” of Hull, raised an action against the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, the proprietor of the harbour of Granton. In it they sought to recover £1000 in name of damages for loss suffered by them in consequence of the grounding of their vessel on a reef of rock in the harbour, through the fault of the defender or those for whom he was responsible.

On 9th December 1903, after a proof, the Lord Ordinary ( Stormonth Darling) issued an interlocutor granting the pursuers decree for £395, 15s. 3d., finding them entitled to expenses, and remitting the account thereof to the Auditor to tax and report. The defender reclaimed to the First Division, but the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary was adhered to with additional expenses, the account of which was remitted to the Auditor.

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The account of expenses lodged by the pursuers had appended to it an account of expenses incurred by them in connection with the preparation of the case to Messrs Pritchard & Sons, solicitors, London, and on 24th December 1904, in the Single Bills, their counsel moved the Court to remit this account to the Taxing Officer of the Supreme Court of Judicature, London, with a request that he would report at what figure it should be taxed. It was stated that the Auditor would not deal with it as it depended on English practice, and reference was made to Camper & Nicholson, Limited v. Wemyss, July 16, 1903, 11 S.L.T. 290.

Counsel for the defender objected, and moved that the account should first be sent to the Auditor in order that he might state with what items of the account the defender was properly chargeable as between party and party, and that these items alone should be remitted for taxation in England. They explained that there were large portions of the account for which the defenders were not liable, and argued that any question as to these should be decided by the Auditor according to Scottish practice.