Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 WRIT.
Subject_2 SECT. I.

Subscription of the Party.

Stephen Broomfield
v.
John Young

Date: 7 December 1752
Case No. No. 25.

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In an action for implement of a minute of tack pursued by Broomfield, Young the tenant objected, that the minute was null, for that it did not bear that the marginal notes had been signed before witnesses; the words of the testing clause being, “Before these witness, Robert Brown tenant [in] Ednam, and John Fish of Castle-law, writer hereof, and witness to the marginal notes also.” Now, since “writer hereof, and witness to the marginal notes also,” cannotbe applied to Brown, Fish must, in all propriety of speech, be held to be the single witness to the subscription of the marginal notes; which therefore can bear no faith in judgment; and consequently that mutual contract, whereof they are a part, must also be null.

Answered for Broomfield: The writer of the deed imagined that the word witness might be used in the plural number, as appears from the testing clause above recited; and this explication being once admitted, the marginal notes will seem properly attested.

“The Lords repelled the objection.”

Act. G. Pringle. Alt. A. Pringle. Reporter, Kilkerran. Fac. Coll. No. 43. p. 64.