Summary decree refused despite defender's conviction

The effect of s 10 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1968 was considered in Hall-Craggs v The Royal Highland Show & Agricultural Society of Scotland [2016] CSOH 8 (Lady Wolffe, 14 January 2016), in the context of a motion for summary decree.

Section 10 allows the fact that someone has been convicted of an offence to be admissible in civil actions as evidence that he/she committed the offence, unless the contrary is proved. Lady Wolffe made some interesting observations about the use of s 10, before confirming that she was not persuaded that there was the necessary correlation between the conviction and the basis of liability in the civil action to enable the pursuers to succeed in establishing liability simply because of the existence of the conviction.

Even if that was not correct, and there was the necessary correlation to bring s 10(1) into play, s 10(2) gave the convicted party an opportunity to show that they had not committed the offence which was the subject matter of the conviction.