Scottish Court of Session Decisions

The pursuer in this action was engaged by the defender, a cattle-dealer and butcher in Keith, as a general domestic servant for the half-year from Martinmas (old style) 1875 to Whitsunday (old style) 1876. When she entered the defender's employment she was not sixteen years old. Her mother had been dead for several years, and her father was a farm-grieve resident at Dulsie Bridge, near Nairn. The defender was married, and had five children, who all, during the period of the pursuer's service, resided in family with him and his wife. The pursuer was the only domestic servant then in the house.

After leaving the defender's service the pursuer raised an action against him in the Sheriff Court of Banffshire, concluding for payment of £500 damages. She alleged that about two months after entering his service he and his wife commenced a systematic course of oppressing her, of outraging her feelings, and of treating her with the greatest cruelty, wanton maliciousness, and inhumanity; and that they continued these practices until she left. In particular, that they oppressed her with work, without allowing her sufficient intervals for sleep; that they did not supply her with the proper quantity or quality of food, but merely with crusts of bread, cold porridge, and other leavings of the family meals; and that during the last month of the period in question they deprived her of regular meals altogether; that they exposed her to cold, without fire, and without proper bedroom accommodation; that they struck her and kicked her, and used abusive language towards her; in short, that they reduced her to a state of unspeakable wretchedness and suffering, and that her life, except during sleep, became a grievous and sickening burden.

In consequence of this barbarous treatment the pursuer averred that her mental faculties as well as her bodily powers came to be affected. She became depressed, abject, feeble, and in a great measure helpless in mind. Her person became emaciated and prematurely decrepit. Her skin was discoloured and wrinkled. Her hands and feet were very much swollen, and covered with chilblains and sores. Unable as she was, thus reduced both physically and mentally, to pay proper attention to personal cleanliness, her person became dirty and covered with vermin, so

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that when she returned to her father's house she presented a humiliating and deplorable spectacle. Owing to the injuries she thus received she was disabled from going out to service during the half-year following Whitsunday 1876; and although in the succeeding half-year she was able to enter upon a period of service, her prospects in life have been very materially damaged by the defender's treatment.

The pursuer further stated that the defender confined her closely to the house even on Sundays, and that he prevented her from writing to her father and from associating with anyone in Keith; in consequence of which, taken along with the helpless physical and mental condition to which she was reduced, she was unable to make known her state to her family or to anyone outside the defender's house.

The pursuer had duly received her wages when she left the defender's service in May 1876, but she averred that her father had reserved on her behalf all her other claims against the defender.

The Sheriff-Substitute ( Scott Moncrieff) and the Sheriff ( Bell) each allowed the pursuer a proof.

The pursuer appealed under the Judicature Act (6 Geo. IV. cap. 120), for jury trial to the Court of Session.

At advising—