Advocate Michael Upton M.C.I.Arb., of Hastie Stable, summarises a recent judgment from the Sheriff Appeal Court on establishing a duty of care for economic loss in a case against an allegedly negligent search firm being pursued for damages by the holder of an inhibition, which the searchers allegedl
Search: Scots syndicate 1901 bought land in Glasgow for £5000
In many of his works Sir Walter Scott referred to real cases and described real criminal court room procedure, drawing on his legal training and experience as an advocate. He once wrote: His library at Abbotsford contains a copy of the trial of Philip Standsfield. An entry dated March 1797 in his pr
A motorist found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving who claimed that he “blacked out” behind the wheel as a result of medications he was prescribed has had a damages action against his GP dismissed. Vincent Friel sued Dr Ian Brown for “negligence”, bu
Advocate Michael Upton, M.C.I.Arb., of Hastie Stable, summarises two recent cases on the new Electronics Communications Code. Relations between landlords and telecoms operators in respect of the installation and maintenance of electronic communications apparatus on land and buildings are in importan
I seldom go to the High court these days. High court generally means legal aid, and a recent time and study analysis showed fees earned on such work did not meet office overheads far less make a profit. Thus, the reduced number of High court cases I take on each year are regarded as pro bono because
Laura Edmunds looks at the case law on personal guarantees in contracts. The past, present and future walked into a bar. It was tense!
The Court of Appeal in England & Wales has handed down its judgment in the matter of Howard Kennedy v The National Trust for Scotland [2019] EWCA Civ 648, on appeal from the decision of Sir David Eady, sitting as a judge of the High Court on the Queen's Bench Division Media and Communications Li
The law on civil partnerships, north and south of the border, is set to change, writes Jennifer Liddell. This year, in response to a Supreme Court ruling, Parliament passed the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019. Section 2 of that act requires the Secretary of State
A landlord who failed to pay a tenancy deposit into an approved deposit scheme until four years into the tenancy has been unsuccessful in challenging a payment order. Linda Searle appealed against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland Housing and Property Chamber (FtT) in which she
A judge has questioned why the courts require facts to be "squeezed into a Moorov straitjacket" instead of recognising a more general principle admitting similar fact evidence where relevance is established. Lord Glennie made the obiter comments in a judgment allowing the appeal against conviction o
The Prime Minister’s advice to HM The Queen that parliamentary business at Westminster should be suspended for five weeks in the run up to “Brexit” undermined a “central pillar” of the constitution that the Government was accountable to Parliament. The Inner House
Scotland’s oldest university will be able to pursue legal action in this jurisdiction against a company it has accused of infringing its trade marks in the sale of student gowns after a Court of Session judge rejected arguments by the London-based retailer that the case should be hea
The three-month time limit for raising judicial review proceedings begins on the date when the decision under challenge is made and not when the party seeking to bring the action is notified of the decision. A judge in the Court of Session ruled that the time limit under section 27A of the
Property law can seem boring and unimportant to some people at times. In the face of a crisis, property law often seems decidedly unimportant. People need to live somewhere, though, and opportunistic and/or thoughtless landlords might use a situation of crisis (or be completely or wilfully oblivious
Robert Pirrie WS, chief executive of the WS Society, tells the story of William Roughead, the Edinburgh lawyer who became the father of the ‘true crime’ genre and the celebrated trial for murder of Miss Madelaine Smith. Amongst the many remarkable collections of the Signet Library,