GEORGE STRACHAN v JAMES BRIDGES, (Clerk to the Improvements' Commissioners of Edinburgh) (Court of Session)

By the 7. and 8. Geo. IV. c. 76, ‘for carrying into effect certain improvements within the City of Edinburgh, and adjacent to the same;’ and by 1. and 2. Will. IV. c. 45, passed ‘to alter and amend’ the preceding act, the execution of the improvements and purposes of the acts was placed in Commissioners, chosen as therein directed; and it was enacted, that these Commissioners might be sued for any thing done or ordered by them in the name of their clerk for the time being.

By the 1. and 2. Will. IV. c. 45, these powers were all continued to the Commissioners, under the limitation set forth in the following quotation from the specification annexed to this Act, viz. ‘To lower the High Street and Bank Street, as authorised by the 7. and 8. Geo. IV. The foot-pavement not to be lowered in any part more than two feet below the present level.’

By the 35th section of the 7. and 8. Geo. IV. c. 76, corporations, heirs of entail, tutors, trustees and others not entitled at common law to alienate or deal upon the heritage in their possession, were enabled to transact with the Commissioners under this Act, which empowers them to sell and convey their lands, houses, &c. ‘for the purposes aforesaid, and also to treat and agree with the said Commissioners for any damages alleged to be sustained in carrying into effect any of the purposes of this Act.’

‘The Lord Ordinary having heard counsel for the parties on the preliminary defences, repels the same; and in respect the defenders state that they mean to submit this interlocutor to review, finds the pursuer entitled to the expenses of this discussion; allows an account thereof to be given in, and remits the same, when lodged, to the Auditor, for his taxation and report.’

The Dean of Faculty , for reclaimers, contended —That the Lord Ordinary's construction of the statute was erroneous, and referred to the English case of Bolton v. Crowther, in 1824.