Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE, LORD HAILES.
Subject_2 LIFERENTER.
Subject_3 A liferenter can sell no wood except coppice, not even although planted by himself.

Gideon Gray
v.
Archibald Seton

Date: 25 February 1789

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[Faculty Collection, X. 116; Dictionary, 8250.]

Swinton. If a liferenter may cut haggs annually, why may he not let them grow; and then, after 20 or 30 years, cut them all together?

Hailes. There is one obvious reason why he cannot: when he cuts annually, a new growth begins the next year, whereas, by doing all at once, he deteriorates the estate. Suppose him to live for twenty-five years, if he cuts annually he will leave one twenty-fifth ready for cutting next year, one twenty-fifth to be cut in the year after, and so on: whereas should he, in the twenty-five years, cut the whole, there must be an interval of twenty-five years before there can be any new cutting at all: this would incroach very materially on the right of the fiar. I must observe here, that the permission asked by the factor proceeds on the supposition that the cutting down all the trees on an estate does not diminish the value of the estate; which is a great error.

Some other judges spake to the same purpose.

On the 20th February 1789, “The Lords refused the incidental petition of the factor.”

For the petitioner,—A. Abercrombie. Alt. H. Erskine.