Scottish Court of Session Decisions

The Earl of Southesk and other riparian proprietors on the river South Esk raised an action of declarator and interdict against the Inch Bleaching Company, Messrs Guthrie, Gray, Peter, & Company, paper manufacturers, The East Mill Company, spinners and bleachers, Messrs Guthrie, Martin, & Company, distillers, and the Commissioners of Police of the Burgh of Brechin, to have them prevented from polluting the said river.

The Lord Ordinary ( Adam) adjusted this issue for the trial of the case—“Whether between the 11th day of June 1877 and the 11th day of June 1880 the Commissioners of Police of the burgh of Brechin did, by discharging sewage or other impure matters, or permitting sewage or other impure matters to be discharged, from the sewers or drains under their charge, at or near the burgh of Brechin, into the Skinners Burn, the Den Burn, and the Glencaldham Burn, or one or more of them, before their confluence with the river South Esk, and into the said river South Esk itself, pollute the water of the said river South Esk, to the nuisance of the pursuer or their authors, or one or more and which of them?”

The pursuer moved the Court to vary the issue by deleting therefrom the words “and which.” They contended that the words were unnecessary, and contrary to the usual form of issue in such cases— Duke of Buccleuch, & c. v. Cowan, &c., 23d Feb. 1866, 4 Macph. 475, and 21st Dec. 1866, 5 Macph. 214.