M'Rae and Another (Mackenzie'S Trustees) v. Gray and Others

Subject_1 Process Subject_2 Trustees Subject_3 Exoneration and Discharge Subject_4 Multiplepoinding — Competency.

Expenses — Trustees — Incompetent Action for Exoneration and Discharge — Personal Liability. Facts: Trustees were about to distribute a trust-estate among the beneficiaries when a claim was made against it, which certain of the beneficiaries refused to admit, while others desired that it should be paid. The trustees thereupon brought an action of multiplepoinding against the beneficiaries and the claimant for the purpose of obtaining their exoneration and discharge. They did not aver that the beneficiaries had refused to grant them extrajudicial exoneration and discharge.

Held that trustees who had brought an action of multiplepoinding for their exoneration and discharge which was found to be incompetent, were personally liable for expenses.

George M'Rae, stone polisher, Peterhead, and others, were the testamentary trustees of the late Hector Mackenzie, who died in 1893. The trust-estate amounted to about £300 (less legacies of £40, Government duties, and expenses of administration), and Page: 173 ↓

They pleaded, inter alia —“((2) Questions having arisen in regard to the distribution of the trust-estate, as condescended on, the pursuers and real raisers are entitled to raise the present action for their exoneration, and decree should be pronounced therein as concluded for.”