Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 MINOR.
Subject_2 SECT. II.

Minor's privileges. - Oath. - Process at a minor's instance to sell land for payment of his debt. - Privilegiatus contra privilegiatum. - How far liable for goods and money furnished to him. - And for money borrowed by his tutor. - May chuse the place of his residence. - Entitled to examine the state of his affairs. - Can a minor pupil contract marriage? - Can a minor be a tutor? - An arbiter? - or a Commissioner of Supply?

Joseph Scoffier
v.
William Read and Samuel Read, his father, and administrator in law

Date: 26 July 1783
Case No. No 46.

A minor drew bills on his father in London, in favour of a haberdasher in Edinburgh, who advanced some cash on them, and furnished goods for the remainder. Acceptance of the bills was refused. The minor found not liable for the cash, and only for such part of the goods as was applied for his own personal use. His father had sufficiently supplied him otherwise.

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William Read, the son of a merchant in London, in the sixteenth year of his age, was bound apprentice to Mr Hay, surgeon in Edinburgh, who had directions to advance every thing necessary for his subsistence and education.

Soon after his arrival in Scotland, Mr Read became debtor to Joseph Scoffier, haberdasher in Edinburgh, in the sum of L. 50 Sterling, partly on account of money advanced by Mr Scoffier, and partly for goods furnished by him. For this sum, Mr Read drew bills on his father, which the latter refused to accept.

In an action for recourse against the minor, in which compearance was made for Mr Read the father, the Lord Ordinary pronounced the following judgment, which was adhered to by the Court upon advising a reclaiming petition for Mr Scoffier.

“In respect it is admitted by the pursuer, that the defender, William Read, is a minor, and that he, the pursuer, who is not a banker or professed dealer in bills of exchange, had no mandate from his the said William Read's father, the other defender, to make advances to or for him; but that, on the contrary, such commission had been given by his father to Mr Thomas Hay, in whose house the said William Read lodged, and to whom he was then bound an apprentice, and who, it is not alleged, had refused to supply the defender William Read with such furnishings as were necessary and suitable; finds, That the pursuer acted rashly and improperly in lending or advancing to the said William Read, on the 23d of October 1782, the sum of L. 16: 16: 6 Sterling, upon getting the said defender's bill or draught on his father, then residing in London, for L. 20 Sterling, and so soon as the 4th of November following, advancing to him another sum of L. 16: 2: 11 Sterling, upon getting a second bill or draught from the defender on his said father for L. 30 Sterling, and both which bills were returned protested for not acceptance; and in respect the pursuer does not offer to prove that the said two sums of L. 16: 16: 6 and L. 16: 2: 11 Sterling were afterwards usefully applied to the clothing, education, or maintenance of the said defender; finds, That the said two bills must be held as in so far granted by the defender, a minor, without consent of his father as administrator-in-law, to the lesion and prejudice of him the said defender; therefore assoilzies as to the said two, sums, part of the contents of the two bills sued on; and also assoilzies as to the farther sum of L. 6: 9: 5 Sterling, admitted to have been included in the contents of the L. 30 bill, as the price or value of a woman's black silk cloak, which the pursuer must have known to have been intended for the use of a person of the female sex, and not to be used or worn by the defender; but in regard it is admitted on the part of the defender, that the remaining sums contained in the said two bills, viz. the sum of L. 3: 3: 6, contained in the first bill for L 20, and the sum of L. 7: 7: 8, included in the second bill of L. 30, were sums due by the defender William Read to the pursuer, on account of articles of wearing apparel furnished by the pursuer to the defender, decerns against the said defender William Read for the said two last mentioned sums, amounting together to the sum of L.10: 11:2 Sterling.”

Lord Ordinary, Eskgrove. Act. Cullen. Alt. Ro. Sinclair. Fol. Dic. v. 4. p. 3. Fac. Col. No. 115. p. l79.