Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Alexander Brown Arthur granted a mandate, dated 4th October 1882, in favour of William Veitch Orr, the present petitioner, authorising him to apply for the sequestration of his estates in terms of the Bankruptcy Acts. Mr Orr having obtained the consent of certain concurring creditors, prepared a petition at the instance of the insolvent for sequestration of his estates, which was lodged with the Sheriff-Clerk of Lanarkshire at Glasgow on Tuesday, 10th October current. A deliverance in usual form sequestrating the insolvent's estates, and appointing the meeting of creditors for the election of trustee to be held on 23d October, was pronounced by the Sheriff-Substitute on the following day, Wednesday the 11th. Thereafter the usual Gazette notice was inserted, and an abbreviate of the sequestration was recorded in the Register of Inhibitions as required by the statute. Upon the following day, Thursday the 12th, the petitioner learned that the body of a man which had been discovered in Leith Docks upon the said Tuesday, 10th October, had been identified as that of the said Alexander Brown Arthur. It thus appeared that the mandate granted by the deceased had fallen by his death previous to the date of the said deliverance, although this was not known to the petitioner at the time. It had been discovered that the estate was not only hopelessly insolvent, but that the insolvent had for some time been in the habit of pawning and appropriating to his own uses goods supplied to him on sale and commission by certain of his creditors.

Mr Orr thereupon presented this petition to the Second Division of the Court of Session. The prayer of the petition craved the Court “to pronounce a deliverance confirming the deliverance of the Sheriff-Substitute, and all that has followed thereupon, and sequestrating the estates of the said Alexander Brown Arthur, and declaring the same to belong to his creditors for the purposes of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1856, and Acts explaining and amending the same; and to appoint the creditors to hold a meeting on the 23d October, at the hour and place fixed by the Sheriff-Substitute; and to remit the sequestration to the Sheriff of Lanarkshire at Glasgow.”

The Court, after hearing counsel on the competency of the petition, pronounced this interlocutor:—

“The Lords having considered the petition, and heard counsel for the petitioner thereon, in respect that it appears that the bankrupt Alexander Brown Arthur was not in life when the deliverance awarding sequestration was pronounced, and that the sequestration was therefore void, Refuse the prayer of the petition.”