COUNSEL: Sir Roundell Palmer, Q.C., and Mr. Cotton, Q.C., for the Appellant.

Mr. Anderson, Q.C., and Mr. Mellish, Q.C., for the Respondents.

 

SOLICITORS: For the Appellants: Grahames & Wardlaw.

For the Respondent: Uptons, Johnson, & Upton.

 

JUDGES: The Lord Chancellor, Lord Cranworth, Lord Chelmsford, Lord Westbury and Lord Colonsay.

 

DATE: 1868 May 14.

 

 

Domicile of Birth or Origin – Its Adherence and Tenacity.

 

Per THE LORD CHANCELLOR:– The law is, beyond all doubt, clear with regard to the domicile of birth, that the personal status indicated by that term clings and adheres to the subject of it until an actual change is made by which the personal status of another domicile is acquired.

 

Per LORD WESTBURY:– The domicile of origin adheres until a new domicile is acquired.

 

Per LORD CHELMSFORD:– The onus of proving a change of domicile is on the party who alleges it.

 

MRS. KENNEDY and her husband claimed from her father (Mr. Bell, the above Appellant) her share of the parental “goods in communion,” on the allegation that Mr. Bell, when his wife (Mrs. Kennedy’s mother) died on the 28th of September 1838, had acquired a Scotch domicile, and so had become subject to the Scotch law as to communio bonorum inter conjuges(2).

 

Mr. Bell’s defence was, that on the 28th of September 1838, when his wife died, he had not acquired a Scotch domicile; for that he had then retained unchanged his domicile of origin in Jamaica, where he was born, where he married, and where communion of goods between husband and wife was unknown.

 

The Second Division of the Court of Session, affirming the interlocutor of Lord Kinloch, decided that Mr. Bell, when his wife died, had become domiciled in Scotland, and, consequently, was liable to his daughter for her proportion of the “goods in communion.”

 

The House of Lords disagreed with this ruling, and determined that on the day in question Mr. Bell’s legal domicile was still in Jamaica, so that the question as to communio bonorum did not require examination.

 

(1) Reported 22 Dunlop, 269, and 3rd Series, Vol. i. p. 1127.

 

(2) That law is now repealed by the 18 & 19 Vict. c. 23, s. 6. [*308]

 

Sir Roundell Palmer, Q.C., and Mr. Cotton, Q.C., were of counsel for the Appellant.

 

Mr. Anderson, Q.C., and Mr. Mellish, Q.C., for the Respondents.

 

The learned Judges below having been unanimous in their decision, and the reversal by the House being unanimous also, the opinions of the Law Peers are given at length; setting forth the facts minutely, and, by reference to the evidence and the arguments adduced, eliminating an important doctrinal correction.

 

THE LORD CHANCELLOR(1):–

 

My Lords, this appeal arises in an action commenced in the Court of Session, I regret to say so long ago as the year 1858; in the course of which action no less than sixteen interlocutors have been pronounced by the Court, all, or the greater part of which, become inoperative or immaterial if your Lordships should be unable to concur in the view taken by the Court below of the question of domicile.

 

The action is raised by Captain Kennedy, and his wife, the daughter of the late Mrs Bell; and the Defender is Mrs. Kennedy’s father, the husband of Mrs. Bell. The claim is for the share, said to belong to Mrs. Kennedy, of the goods held in communion between Mr. and Mrs. Bell. This claim proceeds on the allegation that the domicile of Mrs. Bell, at the time of her death on the 28th of September, 1838, was in Scotland. And the question itself of her domicile at that time depends upon the further question, what was the domicile of her husband? Her husband, the Appellant, is still living; and your Lordships have therefore to consider a case which seldom arises, the question, namely, of the domicile at a particular time of a person who is still living.

 

Mr. Bell was born in the island of Jamaica. His parents had come there from Scotland, and had settled in the island. There appears to be no reason to doubt but that they were domiciled in Jamaica. His father owned and cultivated there an estate called the Woodstock estate. His mother died when the Appellant was about the age of two years, and immediately after his mother’s

 

(1) Lord Cairns. [*309]

 

death he was sent to Scotland for the purpose of nurture and education. By his father’s relatives he was educated in Scotland at school, and he afterwards proceeded to college. His father appears to have died when he was about the age of ten years, dying, in fact, as he was coming over to Great Britain for his health, but with the intention of returning to Jamaica.

 

The Appellant, after passing through college in Scotland, travelled upon the Continent; and soon after he attained the age of twenty-one years he went out again to Jamaica, in the year 1823, with the intention of carrying on the cultivation of the Woodstockestate, which, in fact, was the only property he possessed. He cultivated this estate and made money to a considerable amount. He arrived at a position of some distinction in the island. He was the custos of the parish of St. George, and was a member of the Legislative Assembly. He married his late wife, then Miss Hosack, in Jamaica in the year 1828; and he had by her, in Jamaica, three children.

 

It appears to me to be beyond the possibility of doubt that the domicile of birth of Mr. Bell was in Jamaica, and that the domicile of his birth continued during the events which I have thus described.

 

In the year 1834 a change was made in the law with regard to slavery in the island of Jamaica, which introduced, in the first instance, a system of apprenticeship, maturing in the year 1838 into a complete emancipation. This change appears to have been looked upon by Mr. Bell with considerable disfavour, and, his health failing, in the year 1837 he determined to leave Jamaica,and to return to some part, at all events, of Great Britain. He entered into a contract for the sale of the Woodstock estate, the purchase-money being made payable by certain instalments; and in 1837 he left the island, to use his own expression, “for good.” He abandoned his residence there without any intention at that time, at all events, of returning to the island. He reached Londonin the month of June, 1837. He remained in London for a short time, apparently about ten days, and he then went on to Edinburgh, and took up his abode under the roof of the mother of his wife, Mrs. Hosack, who at that time was living in Edinburgh.

 

I ought to have stated that while the Appellant was in Jamaica [*310] he appears to have kept up a correspondence with his relatives and friends in Scotland. In the year 1833 he acquired (I prefer to use the term “acquired” rather than the word “purchased") the estates of Glengabers and Craka. He appears to have taken to those estates mainly in settlement of a claim for some fortune or money of his wife secured upon them. It is apparent, however, that he had at no time any intention of residing upon Glengabers, and, in fact, the acquisition of those estates bears but little, in my opinion, upon the question of domicile, because in 1833, when he acquired them, his domicile, beyond all doubt, was, and for some years afterwards continued to be, in Jamaica.

 

He wrote occasionally at that time from Jamaica, evincing a desire to buy an estate at some future period in Scotland, if he could obtain one to his liking, and even an intention, if he could obtain such an estate, of living in Scotland, but nothing definite appears to have been arranged or said upon the subject; and, in fact, at this time other suggestions as to other localities appear to have been occasionally entertained and considered by him.

 

In these letters he frequently uses an expression that was much insisted upon at the bar – the expression of “coming home;” but I think it will be your Lordships’ opinion that the argument is not much advanced, one way or the other, by that expression. It appears to me to be obviously a form of language that would naturally be used by a colonist in Jamaica speaking of the mother country in contradistinction to the colony.

 

Up to this point, my Lords, there is really no dispute with regard to the facts of the case. The birth-domicile of the Appellant in Jamaica continued, at all events till 1837, and the onus lies upon those who desire to shew that there was a change in this domicile, by which I mean the personal status indicated by that word, – the onus, I say, lies upon those who assert that the personal status thus acquired, and continued from the time of his birth, was changed, to prove that that change took place. The law is, beyond all doubt, clear with regard to the domicile of birth, that the personal status indicated by that term clings and adheres to the subject of it until an actual change is made by which the personal status of another domicile is acquired. [*311]

 

I do not think it will be necessary to examine the various definitions which have been given of the term “domicile.” The question which I will ask your Lordships to consider in the present case is, in substance, this:– Whether the Appellant, before the 28th of September, 1838, the day of the death of his wife, had determined to make, and had made, Scotland his home, with the intention of establishing himself and his family there, and ending his days in that country? The onus, as I have said, is upon the Respondents to establish this proposition.

 

I will ask your Lordships, in the first place, to look at the facts subsequent to the return of the Appellant to Scotland, as to which there is no dispute, then at the character of the parol evidence which has been adduced, and, finally, at a few passages in the correspondence which is in evidence.

 

As regards the facts which are admitted, they amount to this:– The Appellant lived under the roof of Mrs. Hosack from the time of his arrival in Edinburgh, in the year 1837, until the 1st of June, 1838. He appears to have borne the whole, or the greater part of her house-keeping expenses during that time. He inquired for, and looked after, various estates, in the south of Scotland especially, and he indicated a preference for the estates of Blairstonor Auchindraine, of Mollance, and of Enterkine. With regard to Blairston or Auchindraine, it does not appear, so far as I can discover, to have been actually offered to him for sale. With regard to Mollance, before he came to any determination as to it, it was sold to another person. With regard to Enterkine, at the time we are speaking of, the 1st of June, 1838, a negotiation had been going on by letters written between the Appellant and those who were proposing to sell the estate, but the offer which he ultimately made for it had at that time been refused, and, on the 1st of June, 1838, there was no pending offer on his part for the property. Mrs. Bell, his wife, at this time was expecting her confinement. The house of his mother-in-law, in which they were sojourning, was not sufficiently commodious for their wants, and the Appellant took for one year a furnished house in Ayrshire, called Trochraigue. He took it with no intention, apparently, of buying the estate, although it appears to have been for sale, but with the intention of living for a year in the house, and he hired [*312] servants for his accommodation. He removed to Trochraigue on the 1st of June, 1838, and, while so sojourning there, Mrs. Belldied in her confinement on the 28th of September in that year.

 

It appears to me, beyond all doubt, that prior to this time the Appellant had evinced a great and preponderating preference for Scotland as a place of residence. He felt and expressed a great desire to find an estate there with a residence upon it, with which he would be satisfied. His wife appears to have been even more anxious for this than he himself was; and her mother and their friends appear to have been eager for the Appellant to settle in Scotland. There is no doubt that, since the death of his wife, he actually has bought the estate which I have mentioned, the estate of Enterkine, and that his domicile is now in Scotland. All that, in my opinion, would not be enough to effect the acquisition of a Scotch domicile. There was, indeed, a strong probability up to the time of the death of his wife that he would ultimately find in Scotland an estate to his liking, and that he would settle there. But it appears to me to be equally clear that if, in the course of his searches, a property more attractive or more eligible as an investment had been offered to him across the Border, he might, without any alteration or change in the intention which he expressed or entertained, have acquired and purchased such estate and settled upon it, and thus have acquired an English domicile. In point of fact, he made more or less of general inquiry after estates in England; and a circumstance is told us by one of the witnesses, Mr. Telfer, which seems to me of great significance. Mr. Telfer says that his relations entertained great apprehension or dread that he would settle in England – a state of feeling their part totally inconsistent with the notion that he had, to their knowledge, at that time determined ultimately and finally to settle in Scotland.

 

These being the admitted facts let me next turn to the character of the parol evidence in the case. As to the evidence of the members of the Hosack family, and of the servants, very little is to be extracted from it in the shape of information upon which we can rely. They speak of what they considered and believed was the intention of the Appellant; but as to anything he said or did, to which alone your Lordships could attend, they tell us nothing [*313] beyond what we have from the letters. As to the evidence of the Appellant himself, I am disposed to agree very much with what was said at the Bar, that it is to be accepted with very considerable reserve. An Appellant has naturally, on an issue like the present, a very strong bias calculated to influence his mind, and he is, moreover, speaking of what was his intention some twenty-five years ago. I am bound, however, to say, and therein I concur with what was said by the Court of Session, that the evidence of the Appellant appears to be fair and candid, and that certainly nothing is to be extracted from it which is favourable to the Respondents as regards the onus of proof which they have to discharge.

 

I will now ask your Lordships to look at what to my mind appears the most satisfactory part of the case, namely, the correspondence contemporaneous with the events in the years 1837 and 1838. I do not propose to go through it at length, but I will ask you to consider simply certain principal epochs in the correspondence from which, as it appears to me, we derive considerable light as to the intentions of the Appellant.

 

In the first place, I turn to a letter written by the Appellant on the 26th of September, 1837, three months after the Appellant and his wife had come to Scotland. He is writing from Minto Street, Edinburgh, to his brother-in-law, Mr. William Hosack, in Jamaica, and he says: “I have not got rid of my complaint as yet, and still find difficulty in walking much, and was obliged to forego the pleasures of shooting, on which I had so much set my heart. This country is far too cold for a person not having the right use of his limbs. In fact I have been little taken with anything, and would go to Canada, Jamaica, or Australia, without hesitation. I enjoy the fresh butter and gooseberries.” Of the latter – that is, of the gooseberries – he proceeds to state some evil consequences which he had suffered, and then he says: “Everything else is as good, or has an equivalent fully as good, in Jamaica. My mind is not made up as to the purchase of an estate. Land bears too high a value in proportion to other things in this country, owing to the members of the House of Commons and of Lords being all landowners, and having thereby received greater legislative protection. The reform voters begin to see this, and as soon as the character of the House of Commons changes enough (and it [*314] is changing prodigiously) the value of land will come to its true value in the state. I have formed these views since I came home, and have lost in proportion my land-buying mania.” Thus, having, as I have stated, a domicile by birth in Jamaica, and having come to this country with an indeterminate view as to what property he should become the purchaser of, writing three months afterwards, he says: “I have been little taken with anything, and would go to Canada, Jamaica, or Australia, without hesitation.” Nothing can be more significant as to the absence of any determination in his mind to make Scotland his fixed home, and to spend the remainder of his days there.

 

I come to the 27th of December, 1837, when the Appellant, again writing to the same brother-in-law in Jamaica, says: “As to the country, I like none of it. I have not purchased an estate, and not likely to do so. I had my guns repaired, bought a pointer, purchased the shooting of an estate for £10, have never been there, nor fired a shot anywhere else. Have had a fishing rod in my hands only for two hours, and caught nothing. I bought a horse, and might as well have bought a bear. He bites so, it would have been as easy to handle the one as the other. I exchanged him for a mare, and, positively, I have sent her to enjoy herself in a farm straw yard, without ever having been once on her back, or even touched her in any way.” Here, again, we find that so far from his expressing a liking for the country upon better acquaintance, he says he does not like it, and so far from a determination to purchase an estate in Scotland and end his days upon it, he says, “I have not purchased an estate, and am not likely to do so.”

 

Passing over three months more, I come to a letter dated the 20th of March, 1838, by Mrs. Bell, the wife’s expressions being even more significant than those of her husband; for it is obvious that she, of the two, was more inclined to settle in Scotland. She writes: “The extreme severity of the winter has put us a good deal out of conceit of Scotland, but independent of that, I don’t find the satisfaction in it I anticipated. If circumstances permitted, I would not mind to return to Jamaica, though, I dare say, after being here a few years I might not like it. This country is so gloomy, it is sadly depressing to the spirits, so unlike what one [*315] has been used to in dear, lovely Jamaica. The vile pride and reserve of the people is here too great a source of annoyance. A man is not so much valued on the manners and education of a gentleman as on the rank of his great grandfather – that is to say, among a certain class. You will perceive from this we are still at Number 9. Bell has several properties in view, but is as undetermined about where we may settle as when he left Jamaica. Next week he goes to Ayrshire to look at an estate, and from thence to Galloway and Dumfriesshire. If He don’t fix very soon we purpose taking a furnished house in the country for twelve months.” Now, the whole of this passage, I think, is of considerable importance, but the last sentence I have read affords a key which may be useful in letting us into the design of the spouses in taking the furnished house of Trochraigue. The interpretation given by this letter is, that it was equivalent to saying that they had not at that time fixed upon a residence.

 

I pass on for two months more. The offer which in the interval he had made for Enterkine had been refused. The furnished house at Trochraigue had been taken. The Appellant and his wife were upon the eve of taking possession of it on the 1st of June, 1838; and on the 28th of May, 1838, the Appellant writes to his brother-in-law in Jamaica: “I have taken a country house at Trochrigg.” “I leave this for it on the 1st of June. It is situated two miles from Girvan, which is twenty miles west of Ayr, on the sea coast. Therefore for the next twelve months you can address to me Trochrigg, near Girvan, Ayrshire, Scotland. The offer which I wrote you I have made for Enterkine I received no answer to until sixteen days after, and then I got an answer stating they had a better offer. Of this I believe as much as I like, for I see it advertised again in the Saturday’s paper. I do not know whether I shall make anything of this estate for the present, and I care not. It is still very cold, and if I do not make a purchase in the course of this year, I perhaps will take a trip next summer to the south of France, and see whether I don’t find it warmer there.” That is to say in the next summer, which would be the summer of 1839, he was in expectation that Mrs. Bell and his family would be able to accompany him to “take a trip to the south of France, and see whether he did not find it warmer there,” [*316] not, as it seems to me, for the purpose of enjoying a temporary sojourn, but, if he found it a more agreeable climate, for the purpose of making it his permanent residence.

 

There is only one other passage to which I would ask your Lordships’ attention. It is in a letter written one month afterwards, while Mr. and Mrs. Bell were at Trochrigg, on the 16th of June. Writing to Mr. William Hosack, the Appellant says: “There are several gentlemen’s seats in the neighbourhood, but none of them reside in them. We will probably have only three or four acquaintances, and shall be, in that respect, much the same as in Jamaica. We must, however, make the most of it for twelve months, in the hope that during that time I may be able to find some estate that will be suitable for me as a purchase.”

 

I find nothing after this material in the correspondence before the death of Mrs. Bell, and the last sentence I have read appears to me to sum up and to describe most accurately the position in which the Appellant was at Trochrigg; he was there in the hope that, during the “twelve months,” he might be able to find some estate which might be suitable to him for purchase; but upon that contingency, as it seems to me, depended the ultimate choice which he would make of Scotland, or some other country, as a place of residence. If his hope should be realized, we might from this letter easily infer that Scotland would become his home. If his hope should not be realized, I see nothing which would lead me to think, but everything which would lead me to doubt, that he would have elected to remain in Scotland as his place of residence.

 

It appears to me, on the whole, upon consideration of the facts which are admitted in the case, and the parol evidence, and the correspondence to which I have referred, that so far from the Respondents having discharged the onus which lies upon them to prove the adoption of a Scotch domicile, they have entirely failed in discharging that burden of proof, and that the evidence leads quite in the opposite direction. There is nothing in it to shew that the Appellant’s personal status of domicile as a native and an inhabitant of Jamaica has been changed on coming here by that which alone could change it, his assumption of domicile in another [*317] country. I am, therefore, unfortunately unable to advise you to concur in the opinion of the Court of Session. The Lord Ordinary entertained the opinion that the Appellant, from the first moment of his arrival in Scotland, and of his sojourn at Mrs. Hosack’s house, had acquired a Scotch domicile. But nothing could be more temporary – nothing more different from the state of things that would lead to the conclusion of the assumption of a Scotch domicile – than the circumstances under which that sojourn took place. Lord Cowan, in delivering the opinion of the Court of Session, appears, on the other hand, to have thought that the Scotch domicile was not acquired at the time of arrival in Scotland, but was acquired at the time of taking possession of Trochrigg. But if we are to put upon the occupation of Trochrigg the interpretation which the Appellant himself put upon it at the time, so far from its being an assumption of a Scotch domicile, it appears to me to have borne an entirely different construction, and to have been a temporary place of sojourn, in order that a determination might be arrived at in the course of the sojourn as to whether a Scotch domicile should or should not ultimately be acquired.

 

There is one passage in the judgment of the Court of Session, delivered by Lord Cowan, to which I must ask your Lordships more particularly to refer, for it appears to me to afford a key to what I think, with great respect, I must call the fallacious reasoning of the judgment. After speaking of the parol evidence given by the Appellant, Lord Cowan uses these words: “For after all, what do the statements of the Defender truly amount to? Simply this, that prior to September, 1838, he had not fixed on any place of permanent residence, and had not finally made up his mind or formed any fixed intention to settle in Scotland before he bought Enterkine. There is no statement that he had it in his mind to take up his residence elsewhere than in Scotland.” If, my Lords, I read these words correctly, Lord Cowan appears to have intimated that in his opinion it would not be enough to find that the Appellant had not fixed on any place of permanent residence prior to September, 1838, and had not decidedly made up his mind or formed a fixed intention to settle in Scotland, unless proof were also adduced that he had it in his mind to take up his residence elsewhere than in Scotland. I venture to think that would be an [*318] entirely fallacious mode of reasoning, and would be entirely shifting the position of the proof which has to be brought forward. The question, as it seems to me, is not whether he had made up his mind to take up his residence elsewhere than in Scotland, but the question is, had he, prior to September, 1838, finally made up his mind or formed a fixed intention to settle in Scotland. Lord Cowan appears to admit that the parol evidence itself would shew that that had not been done, and that parol evidence is, in my mind, fortified and made very much more emphatic by the evidence of the correspondence to which I have referred.

 

I have humbly, therefore, to advise your Lordships to assoilzie the Defender from the conclusions of the summons, and to reverse the sixteen interlocutors which have been pronounced by the Court below.

 

LORD CRANWORTH:–

 

The whole evidence has been so thoroughly examined by my noble and learned friend, that I feel that I should be rather wasting your Lordships’ time if I were to attempt to go over again that which has been so completely exhausted by him.

 

That the Appellant’s domicile of origin was in Jamaica, and that it so continued tin the month of April, 1837, is not and cannot be disputed. His residence there was interrupted for his education, partly in Scotland and partly on the Continent; but to Jamaicahe returned immediately afterwards; there he married, and there he had his family; there he set up his lares, and there he continued till April, 1837, and would probably have continued much longer, but that his health had began to fail. Then he returned to England – I say England – and it was really to England, because he landed at Dover:– he passed a few days in London, and then went directly down to his mother-in-law’s house in Edinburgh; but after residing, as he did temporarily, with her for about nine months, it is plain that he found that he was not quite so much pleased with the country to which he had returned as he expected to have been; and I think, therefore, that his inclinations were shaken upon this subject.

 

On the whole, my Lords, I entirely agree with the conclusion arrived at by my noble and learned friend. [*319]

 

LORD CHELMSFORD:–

 

My Lords, I agree with my two noble and learned friends, that Mr. Bell had not acquired a domicile in Scotland at the time of his wife’s death in September, 1838.

 

This case being one of an alleged change of domicile, it is necessary to bear in mind that a domicile, although intended to be abandoned, will continue until a new domicile is acquired. And that a new domicile is not acquired until there is not only a fixed intention of establishing a permanent residence in some other country, but until also this intention has been carried out by actual residence there.

 

It may be conceded that if the intention of permanently residing in a place exists, a residence in pursuance of that intention, however short, will establish a domicile.

 

Mr. Bell’s original domicile was Jamaica, and it is for the Respondents, who rely upon a change of domicile, to prove that such change took place. The change of domicile (if any) must be dated subsequently to April, 1837, when Mr. Bell turned his back upon Jamaica, and apparently with the intention of never returning to the island. The learned counsel at one time seemed disposed to argue that Mr. Bell, having a fixed intention of making Scotlandhis future residence, the moment he quitted Jamaica with that view he acquired a Scotch domicile. But as intention alone is not sufficient to constitute domicile, this argument was not much insisted upon. It was contended, with more plausibility, that if Mr. Bell left Jamaica with the intention of never returning, but of purchasing land in Scotland, as soon as he arrived in Scotlandand set about this intention he acquired a domicile. I do not think, however, that there is sufficient proof of a fixed intention on the part of Mr. Bell to purchase an estate in Scotland, and not elsewhere, with a view to a permanent residence, until he became the purchaser of Enterkine, which was after the period when the Respondent’s case requires that the domicile should be established. He was certainly upon the look-out (if I may use the expression) for a place in Scotland, and would no doubt have closed with any advantageous offer. But it seems to me to be equally clear that he was not so wedded to the idea of a residence in Scotland as that if anything more eligible had presented itself in England he [*320] would not have embraced it. To use his own expression upon his examination in the cause, he had “no fixed intention as to what he was to do for the future.”

 

I think the Respondents have failed to prove Mr. Bell’s intention to acquire a new domicile before the death of his wife on the 28th of September, 1838; and therefore that the interlocutor finding that he became domiciled in Scotland at this date ought to be reversed.

 

LORD WESTBURY:–

 

My Lords, I have very few words to add to what has been already stated to your Lordships; and, perhaps, even those are not quite necessary.

 

What appears to me to be the erroneous conclusion at which the Court of Session arrived is in great part due to the circumstance, frequently lost sight of, that the domicile of origin adheres until a new domicile is acquired. In the argument, and in the judgments, we find constantly the phrase used that he had abandoned his native domicile. That domicile appears to have been regarded as if it had been lost by the abandonment of his residence in Jamaica. Now, residence and domicile are two perfectly distinct things. It is necessary in the administration of the law that the idea of domicile should exist, and that the fact of domicile should be ascertained; in order to determine which of two municipal laws may be invoked for the purpose of regulating the rights of parties. We know very well that succession and distribution depend upon the law of the domicile. Domicile, therefore, is an idea of law. It is the relation which the law creates between an individual and a particular locality or country. To every adult person the law ascribes a domicile, and that domicile remains his fixed attribute until a new and different attribute usurps its place. Now this case was argued at the Bar on the footing, that as soon as Mr. Bell left Jamaica he had a settled and fixed intention of taking up his residence in Scotland. And if, indeed, that had been ascertained as a fact, then you would have had the animus of the party clearly demonstrated, and the factum, which alone would remain to be proved, would in fact be proved, or, at least, would result immediately upon his arrival in Scotland. [*321]

 

The true inquiry, therefore, is – Had he this settled purpose, the moment he left Jamaica, or in course of the voyage, of taking up a fixed and settled abode in Scotland? Undoubtedly, part of the evidence is the external act of the party; but the only external act we have here is the going down with his wife to Edinburgh, the most natural thing in the world, to visit his wife’s relations. We find him residing in Scotland from that time; but with what animus or intention his residence continued there we have yet to ascertain. For although residence may be some small primä facieproof of domicile, it is by no means to be inferred from the fact of residence that domicile results, even although you do not find that the party had any other residence in existence or in contemplation.

 

I take it that Mr. Bell may be more properly described by words which occur in the Digest; that when he left Jamaica he might be described as quærens, quo se conferat, atque ubi constituat domicilium(1). Where he was to fix his habitation was to him at that time a thing perfectly unresolved; and, as appears from the letters which your Lordships have heard, that irresolution, that want of settled fixity of purpose, certainly continued down to the time when he actually became the purchaser of Enterkine. But the punctum temporis to which our inquiries are to be directed as to Mr. Bell’s intention is of an earlier date than that. The question is, had he any settled fixed intention of being permanently resident in Scotland on the 28th of September, 1838? I quite agree with an observation which was made in the Court of Session, that the letters are the best evidence in the case. To those letters your Lordships’ attention has been directed, and whether you refer to the language of the wife’s letters, or look exclusively at the language of the husband’s letters written to his familiar friends or his relatives whom he had left in Jamaica, it is impossible to predicate of him that he was a man who had a fixed and settled purpose to make Scotland his future place of residence, to set up his tabernacle there, to make it his future home. And unless you are able to shew that with perfect clearness and satisfaction to yourselves, it follows that the domicile of origin continues. And therefore I think we can have no hesitation in answering the question where he was settled on the 28th of September. It must

 

(1) Dig. lib. 50, t. 1, 27. [*322]

 

be answered in this way; he was resident in Scotland, but without the animus manendi, and therefore he still retained his domicile of origin.

 

My Lords, it is matter of deep regret, that although it might have been easily seen from the commencement of this cause that it turned entirely upon this particular question, yet we find that ten years of litigation have taken place, with enormous expense, and an enormous amount of attention to a variety of other matters, which would have been wholly unnecessary if judicial attention had been concentrated upon this question, which alone was sufficient for the decision of the case.

 

LORD COLONSAY:–

 

My Lords, while I do not differ from the judgment proposed, I cannot say that the case has appeared to me to be so very clear and free from difficulty as it has appeared to my noble and learned friends. I think it is a case of nicety on the evidence. But having gone over that evidence more than once with much care, and having listened to the whole of the able argument for the Respondents, I do not see any sufficient ground for rejecting the conclusion at which my noble and learned friends have arrived.

 

The principle of domicile is one which occupies a very prominent place in our law, and in the law of all civilized countries. It exercises an influence almost paramount in regard to personal status and rights of succession, as well as to political international relations. It has therefore necessarily undergone much discussion in all countries, and both in ancient and modern times. Yet there is perhaps no chapter in law that has from such extensive discussion received less of satisfactory settlement. That is no doubt attributable, in no small degree, to the nature of the subject, involving, as it does, inquiry into the animus of persons who have either died without leaving any clear record of their intentions, but allowing them to be collected, by inference, from acts often equivocal; or who, being alive and interested, have a natural, though, it may be, an unconscious, tendency to give to their bygone feelings a tone and colour suggested by their present inclinations.

 

I am not disposed to take the evidence of Mr. Bell as the corner stone of my judgment. I agree with the Respondents in [*323] thinking that what Mr. Bell wrote at the time, and what he did at the time, are better materials and safer grounds for judgment than what he says now. And I should have been of that opinion even if his evidence had been less open to criticism, and less vulnerable than it is.

 

The case presents itself to my mind in this light. Mr. Bell’s domicile was in Jamaica – not only his domicile by residence and property, and as being the seat of his mercantile pursuits and all his worldly interests, but also his domicile of origin. To this last I attach considerable importance, though I think that the measure of its importance on the question of evidence may be, and in this case is, modified by other considerations – such as the previous history of his family, and of his wife’s family, and his own early associations by residence in Scotland for twenty years from childhood until manhood. Still I think the circumstance that Jamaicawas the domicile of origin is not unimportant in this case, and especially on the question as to the extinction of that domicile.

 

Then I think it is very clear that Mr. Bell left Jamaica with the intention of never returning, or, as it is expressed in some of the letters, he left it “for good.” I further think that his leading desire at that time, and for some time previously, was to acquire a land estate in Scotland, which would give him a desirable residence, and be at the same time a good investment for his money. This last was, I think, a desideratum, for it appears that he intended to invest in that way the whole, or nearly the whole, of his fortune, and was even disposed to borrow £14,000 or £15,000 to enable him to make such a purchase as he desired. But I do not think that his having sailed from Jamaica with that intent extinguished his Jamaica domicile. I know of no authority for that proposition. There are dicta to the effect that if Scotland had been the domicile of origin, and he had bid a final adieu to Jamaica and sailed for Scotland, and had died in itinere, the domicile of origin would be held to have revived; but there is no authority for saying that a person dying in transitu from the domicile of origin to a foreign land, had lost the domicile of origin. He could not so displace the effect which law gives to the domicile of origin, and which continues to attach until a new domicile is acquired animo et facto. He cannot have acquired a domicile in a new country which he has never reached. [*324]

 

But Mr. Bell did reach Scotland – and there the difficulty of this case begins. His leading desire was to find in Scotland an estate such as he would be disposed to invest his fortune in. He arrived in Scotland in June or July, 1837. He immediately set about prosecuting inquiries as to estates, chiefly in Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire, and Galloway. Among these was the estate of Enterkine. For that estate he made an offer in 1838, which was refused. He made a higher offer in 1839, which was accepted. I have no doubt that from the date of that purchase he was to be regarded as a domiciled Scotchman. The leading desire with which he left Jamaica and arrived in Scotland, and which during two years’ residence in Scotland he still entertained, had now been realized. He had found a property such as he had desired, with a mansion that suited him. He invested his fortune in that purchase, and took up his abode in that mansion – and he and his whole interest thus became, as it were, identified with that estate and rooted in the soil. The question here, however, is whether in September of the preceding year he had acquired a Scotch domicile.

 

To that question an affirmative answer was given by all the five learned Judges who considered the case in the Court below. A negative answer has been given by all my noble and learned friends who have now addressed the House. In these circumstances, and it being very much of a jury question, I may be excused for regarding it as a question of some difficulty.

 

The argument of the Respondents that Mr. Bell, having quitted Jamaica for good, and gone to Scotland, where he had many attractions, with the avowed intention of investing his fortune in land in Scotland, and having indicated no disposition to make any other investment, his Scotch domicile must be held to have commenced from the time he arrived in Scotland and set about the prosecution and realization of that object, although in the meantime, while prosecuting his inquiries, he provided himself with a temporary habitation, was very forcibly put, and under certain supposable circumstances might be entitled to the greatest weight. I do not think that the acquisition of a permanent habitation by purchase or lease is necessary to domicile, neither do I attach importance to the circumstance that his inquiries or views were not always directed to the same estate, or to estates in the same county. If it was clear that [*325] prior to September, 1838, there was a fixed determination to invest his fortune in land in Scotland, and to reside there, I think that there was enough of actual residence to support the case of the Respondents. But I think that while he had a strong desire to invest in land in Scotland with a suitable mansion on it, the fulfilment of that desire was contingent on his finding an estate that would give him not only a suitable residence, but also an adequate return for his money. This was indispensable, because his whole fortune was to be invested. Such an investment is not always, or easily, to be got, and it is to me by no means clear that if he had not been able within a short time to obtain such an investment he would have remained in Scotland. Looking to what appears to have been the state of his health, and the opinions expressed as to the climate, it seems not at all unlikely that in that event he would have lived chiefly in a warmer climate, and perhaps occasionally visited his friends in Scotland. He might, or might not, have invested in land elsewhere. But I do not see sufficient ground for holding that he had resolved to make Scotland the country of his residence, except in the event of his being able to make such an investment as he desired. In the meantime his mind was unsettled as to where he should finally cast anchor. His location in Scotland was tentative.

 

If his final offer for Enterkine, in the spring of 1839, had been rejected, I see no reason to conclude that he would have remained in Scotland; and if he had then gone to a preferable climate and taken up his residence there, I think it could not have been held that he had in the previous September become a domiciled Scotchman. If he had gone to Scotland with intent to reside permanently there, without regard to any particular mode of investing his fortune, the contingency on which, I think, so much depends, would have been out of the case, and his location in Scotlandwould not have been attributable to that purpose of investigation previous to decision to which I think it may fairly be attributed. No doubt, the continuance of the residence of a person in any country, however long he has been there, may, in a sense, be said to be contingent on possible future occurrences. But that has no resemblance to the present case, for here the purpose to settle [*326] in a particular country, and so acquiring a domicile there, was contingent, and, as I think, in suspense.

 

Upon these grounds I am disposed to concur in the judgment proposed.

 

Other defences were pleaded in the action and were maintained in the Court below, and as the learned Judges in that Court were of opinion that the Scotch domicile had been established, it was proper, and, indeed, quite necessary, for them to deal with those other defences, and it would equally have been our duty to have done so if we had taken the same view as they did of the import of the evidence in regard to domicile; but in consequence of our having taken a different view of the import of that evidence it has now become unnecessary to deal with those other defences.

 

Interlocutors reversed.