Generate a structured brief — facts, issues, held, reasoning, and significance — for this case in seconds. Or browse the verbatim judgment via the source links below.
The suspender, Orme, resided for several years in Edinburgh, where she took a house in her own name, and kept a school with the assistance of her daughter. Being charged by an indorser for payment of a bill for L.14, 10s. which she had accepted as the price of a watch, she presented a bill of suspension, on the general ground, that being a married woman, her husband, William Orme, being resident in London, she could not, for any civil debt so contracted, be subjected to personal imprisonment.
In proof of the marriage, she referred mainly to an agreement entered into, some months previous, between herself and her alleged husband, relative to the disposal of some property which had been lately left to her by a relation in India.
In answer, the charger maintained, that no proof of the alleged marriage had been produced; but, at all events, supposing the marriage to be established, the rule of law was inapplicable to a case like the present, where the debt had been contracted by a wife who carried on a separate trade in her own name, while her husband was out of the kingdom. It was settled by the decision of the Court in the case of Churnside v. Currie, 11 July 1789, M. 6082, that in such a situation the privilege did not apply.
Whether the Court may see, in the facts of this case, any grounds on which it can be decided, without involving this very serious question, the Lord Ordinary will not presume to say; but he has not been able to find any such grounds satisfactory to his own mind.’
At the advising, it appeared to their Lordships that no sufficient evidence of the marriage had been produced, supposing the question to depend upon that fact; but the Lord President said, that even if a marriage were established, he did not think that this would be a ground for suspending the charge. His Lordship had no doubt upon the point of law, which he understood to have been deliberately settled in the case of Churnside, and he did not think that there was any sufficient ground for shaking the authority of that judgment.
Auto-extracted from BAILII. Full structured brief in progress — the source links below give you the verbatim judgment in the meantime.
Multiple official and mirror sources — pick whichever loads cleanly on your network.
Common Room
0 comments · About the Common Room →
No comments yet — start the discussion.
Voted-best comments help future students and feed Caselaw's AI study tools.