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Scottish Court of Session Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Scottish Court of Session Decisions >> Chenevix-Trench Petitioner [1916] ScotLR 160 (20 December 1916)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/1916/54SLR0160.html
Cite as: [1916] ScotLR 160, [1916] SLR 160
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SCOTTISH_SLR_Court_of_Session
Page: 160↓
Court of Session Inner House Second Division.
Facts:
Where in an action for reduction of a will registered in the Books of Council and Session it was desired to produce the will before a commissioner for taking evidence, the Court, on a petition, authorised the Keeper of the Register, or person authorised by him, to attend with the will and exhibit it.
Miss Mary Eliza Chenevix-Trench, residing at Callander Lodge, Callander, petitioner, against whom, as executrix and as an individual with others, an action had been raised by John Theodore Churchill and others for the reduction of the will of the late Colonel James Peter Robertson, C.B., issues for jury trial having been approved on 18th October 1916, presented a petition in which she craved the Court “to grant warrant to and authorise the Keeper of the Register of Deeds, or other person authorised by him, to attend at the trial by jury fixed to take place before Lord Dewar, Ordinary, on Tuesday the 9th day of January 1917, and subsequent dates of the trial, and also before commissioners appointed to take the evidence of any witnesses on commission in Edinburgh in connection with said trial, and to bring with him the principal will and codicils before mentioned, and to exhibit the same for inspection at said trial and commissions.”
The petition stated—“That it is necessary for the purposes of the trial in said action that the will and codicils of the said James Peter Robertson, which were registered in the Books of Council and Session on the 3rd day of March 1916, and which are accordingly in the custody of the Keeper of the Register of Deeds, should be made available and exhibited at the said trial and at commission for the examination of witnesses,
Page: 161↓
whose evidence may be taken on commission for the purposes of said trial. That the present application has been duly intimated to the Keeper of the Register of Deeds.” Counsel for the petitioner moved the Court to grant the prayer of the petition, and cited in support of the production before Commissioners, C.A.S., B, ii, 4; Mansfield v. Stuart, (1840) 2 D. 1235. On the previous suggestion of the Court the petitioner's law agents had consulted the Keeper of the Register of Deeds, who informed them that there was a precedent for the exhibition of such deeds before a commissioner—the case of Smith's Trustees (not reported),—in which the First Division had granted warrant to that effect on 27th May 1909.
The Court granted the prayer of the petition.
Counsel for the Petitioner— Hamilton. Agents— Lindsay, Howe, & Company, W.S.