HELEN STARK, v SIR JAMES WELLWOOD MONCREIFF (Court of Session)

In January 1809, Thomas Hamilton Miller, on terminating a connexion with Helen Stark, the pursuer, in the course of which she bore him two children, granted the following bond in her favour:

In 1813, Mr Miller, who had married some years before, on account of the embarrassed state of his affairs, executed a trust-deed for behoof of his creditors. In 1814, his father intimated an intention of suspending an allowance of L. 150, but, in consequence of the representations of the defender, the annuity to Helen Stark was still paid by the father until his death in 1817. This payment was continued by the father's trustees until 1822, when it became apparent that Mr Miller's interest in the succession would not warrant farther payment of the annuity by his father's trustee.

The pursuer likewise raised an action against Mr Miller, in which she obtained decree for the arrears of the annuity.

Defences were lodged for the defender, against whom alone the action was ultimately insisted on, when he pleaded ,

‘ Note .—This is certainly a case of great hardship on the part of the defender; but in this particular it only resembles many others, in which trustees, acting with the best intentions, have ultimately found themselves involved in the most serious responsibility, for the neglect of precautions, which their reliance on the purity of those intentions had led them to overlook.