The Reverend Alexander Scott, D. D, Plaintiff, Christopher Smelt, Defendant
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 24 February 1831 |
| Date | 24 February 1831 |
| Court | Exchequer |
English Reports Citation: 159 E.R. 987
IN THE COURT OF EXCHEQUER AND EXCHEQUER CHAMBER
the eeveeend alexander scott, D.D , Plaintiff, christopher smelt, Defendant. Jan 18tb, ^2nd, 25th, Feb. 24th, 1831.-Where the occupier of lands, shortly before the lambing season, removed his ewes to part of his farm in another parish, which he occupied tithe free; and, shortly after the lambing season, removed back the ewes with their lambs to that part of his farm on which they had previously been depastured, where such as lived remained until the next shearing time, and then rendered tithe of wool to the vicar, there being no direct evidence of the removal being fraudulent, and some evidence that the land to which the ewes were removed to drop their lambs was the most convenient for the purpose: Held, that the vicar was not entitled to the tithes of the lambs, and that he was not entitled to the tithe of agistment of the ewes, from the time of their last shearing, down to their removal to drop their lambs; but that the tithe of wool at the next shearing was the whole that the vicar was entitled to. The biR was filed by the plaintiff, as vicar of Catterick in the county of York, against the defendant, an occupier of lands in the township of Appleton, for an account of the titheable matters had by the defendant on his farm, during the period stated in the bill, except corn, grain, and hay, and for satisfaction for the tithes. The bill in particnlar charged that the defendant, in order to defraud the plaintiff of the tithes of lambs, after having fed the ewes for a, considerable time, and nearly the whole year, on the said farm and lands, had, from time to time in each and every year, removed the said ewes, a shoit time before their lambing, into a meadow or pasture of twenty acres, belonging to the defendant, in the adjoining parish of Hornby, which was free from the payment of small tithes ò and a short time after the lambing of the said ewes, in each and every year, the defendant caused the ewes to bt brought back to the said farm and lands in the said parish of Catterick, together with the lambs, and there fed, and that the [257] defendant alleged that the plaintiff had no right or title to the tithes of the said lambs lambed on the said twenty acres, or aay satisfaction or compensation for the same. The bill charged that the said land m the adjoining parish consisted altogether of little more than twenty acres in quantity, and that almost the whole of such land 988 SCOTT V. SMELT YOU. 258. wag arable land* and that the residue thereof, consisting of nut more than an acre, waa the only part that wag pasture land during the whole of the period. And that, although the said land was not veiy far distant from the house of the defendant, yet that he had other pasture land within the parish of Cattenck, and immediately adjoining and surrounding his house, which land was, in fact, much more convenient for the ewes to lamb in than the other ground, which was out of the said parish, and at a greater distance from his house, and was perfectly sound, and excellently adapted for...
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