Young v. Scotts

A month before his death, Jedburgh merchant John Young settled his heritage upon the daughters of his older sister, although his customary heir was Andrew Young, the eldest son of his younger brother. Andrew Young then sold his right to this heritage to his sister, Agnes, who raised an action of reduction of Young's disposition on the head of deathbed, because he had died within sixty days of its execution. The defenders asserted to Lord Covington that Young had recovered his health just before his death, and produced two witnesses who swore that they had encountered Young at the Flesh Market after he had executed the disposition. Covington pronounced that Young had indeed recovered. The pursuers then petitioned the Court to alter this interlocutor. They asserted that numerous countervailing testimonies cast doubt on whether Young had really visited the Flesh Market in the weeks before his death. On July 3rd, 1777, the Court adhered to Lord Covington's interlocutor. The pursuers submitted another petition, emphasizing that the oaths of the two witnesses to Young's alleged convalescence were unreliable: "Robson is in low circumstances, and considerably in debt to the defender in this reduction; and Laidlaw is in a manner subsisted upon charity." Marginalia on the second petition indicates that the Court may indeed have altered their decision on August 6th, however reports of this case mention no such revision.