Case Reports

The Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary has rejected an appeal brought to it by reference of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, reasoning that post-conviction developments in the appellant’s mental state did not mean that his sentence had proceeded on the basis of an inacc

A lord ordinary has granted special powers to the judicial factor of a trust, set up to manage an East Lothian farm following its owner’s death, despite a trustee’s objections to the factor’s proposals to sell the farm. The noter was appointed judicial factor of the Old Waughton Di

The Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary has refused an appeal against a domestic abuse conviction after finding that the sheriff had not erred in admitting hearsay evidence which, owing to severe mental ill health, the appellant’s ex-partner could not deliver as a witness. The appella

The Sheriff Appeal Court has dismissed a parent’s appeal against the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s refusal to remove a note describing the parent’s “extended campaign” to “cause disruption and annoyance” from its internal records, finding that even

A lord ordinary has allowed proof in a claim for damages brought by the owner of an industrial unit in Bellshill destroyed by fire in 2021, after finding its averments that the tenant’s omissions caused the owner’s losses to go uninsured to be “at least arguable”. An industri

A South Asian restaurant in Middlesborough has won an appeal to the UK Supreme Court against a £15,000 illegal working civil penalty notice, after the court found the Secretary of State’s failure to specify the grounds on which the notice was issued to be fatal to its validity. The appel

The tenant of a hotel room in Crail has lost an appeal regarding a notice to quit served on him by the unconfirmed executor of the hotel owner’s estate, with the Sheriff Appeal Court reasoning that the notice was retrospectively validated by the executor’s subsequent confirmation. The ap

The UK Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the Kingdom of Bahrain after a majority of the Court’s justices held that the Gulf state was not entitled to invoke state immunity against tort claims brought by UK-based activists whose computers had allegedly been infected with spyware by Bahrai

A lord ordinary has refused an action to quash a decree of divorce granted after undefended proceedings in 2024, finding that the pursuer’s suggestions of inaccuracies in the factual basis of the decree did not provide sufficient grounds for reduction. The parties’ divorce was granted on

An Alloa-based limited company has lost its appeal against the imposition of late filing penalties, after the Sheriff Appeal Court noted that the company's apparent acceptance that the charges were due and failure to make any submissions rendered its appeal “nothing short of spurious”. T

The Outer House of the Court of Session has allowed the pursuers in a professional negligence claim against a Scottish firm of solicitors to amend their pleadings to seek a remedy on a joint basis, notwithstanding the firm’s claims that such an amendment was incompetent and time-barred. The pu

The Sheriff Appeal Court has refused a party litigant’s appeal against a £2,000 decree granted by default, finding that the litigant’s repeated refusal to attend hearings on asserted medical grounds was “absolute, unilateral and self-serving” in nature. A dispute concer

The Sheriff Appeal Court has cautioned against unduly permissive case management in actions involving disruptive litigants, observing how one unsuccessful appellant had been “regrettably permitted” to abuse the court process to “continue a personal campaign against the respondents&

A lord ordinary has ordered a British Virgin Islands-based sureties company to honour a £1.25m performance bond, after dismissing as irrelevant its reliance on various alleged formal defects in the beneficiary’s demand for payment. The pursuer issued a demand for payment to the defender

The Sheriff Appeal Court has ordered an online car dealer to refund a £99 deposit, described as “non-refundable” in standard terms and conditions, by reference to consumer contract regulations after finding that the sheriff erred in dismissing the buyer’s claim of his own mot