HENDERSON or MERCER, and Husband, v W G CAMPBELL, Principal Clerk of the High Court of Admiralty, and his Depute (Court of Session)

In November 1826, Mrs Mercer, the only surviving child and executrix of A. Henderson of Leith, raised a summons of multiplepoinding, regarding this sum, in the name of Sir William Forbes and Company, as holders of the fund in medio , with the usual conclusion, that the pursuers should be found liable only in ‘single payment to the person or persons who may have best right thereto; and also concluding that the clerk of the said High Court of Admiralty, with whom the said receipt was deposited, ought and should be ordained to produce the same,’ &c.

The Court , upon advising a reclaiming note for the clerks of the Court of Admiralty, altered this interlocutor, and dismissed the process, upon the ground that it was incompetent to remove, in this manner, from one court to another, a question concerning the property of funds consigned by order of a judge in the course of an action depending before him, and thus placed at his disposal.

The Lord Justice-Clerk remarked that the only exception which occurred to him was the case of money, or other articles, lodged in the hands of the clerk of the Court of Justiciary, in the course of a criminal process, where, for obvious reasons, it was often proper to raise a multiplepoinding in the Court of Session in the name of the clerk of Justiciary, in order to ascertain the party to whom the funds belonged.

Lord Ordinary, Medwyn. Act. Sandford. Alt. Sol.-Gen. et Neaves. J. Burness, S. S. C. and Arch. Duncan, S. S. C. Agents. F. Clerk.

This case was omitted at its proper place, the M.S. having been mislaid in the printing-office.