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87 Tul. L. Rev. 741 (2012-2013)

handle is hein.journals/tulr87 and id is 789 raw text is: Unworthiness to Inherit, Public Policy, Forfeiture: The Scottish Story John MacLeod* Reinhard Zimmermann** The concerns addressed by the civilian rules on unworthiness to iherit (indignitas succedendi) must be addressed by any legal system. When they arose in Scotland responses tended to be found by the extension or development of other rules. Even where there was reference to the idea of unworthiness, as in the Parncide Act 1594 and i Buchanan v Paterson (1704), the result was later e-conceptualzed along differnt lines. In recent years, the Scottish courts have been more meceptive to the public policy principle that no one is to benefit from his or her own wrong, taken from the English common law Even there, however, the Scottish courts have shown a reluctance to follow foreign authonties too closely The rsult is a seies of shoots, each taking a shghtly different drection and none of them growing to matwity Thus, whatever miht be said aboutLord Coopers charactenzation of Scottish legal history as a story of false starts and rejected experiments on a general level, it is certainly an accurate descnption of the story told in this Article, that is, of the treatment of persons who do not deserve to inberitin Scots law It is remarkable how much of the discussion i Scots law is focused on cases involymg the lalhng of the deceased The differences between the unworthiness and the public policy approach do not in fact play a role i this situation and that is probably the mason why they ha ve not elicited much comment Beyond kiling there is hardly any case law One of the mai reasons for this appears to be that other legal devices are available to take care ofmany perhaps most, ofthe practical problems that may be mised in other instances ofun worthiness to iberit. I. GENERAL BACKGROUND ..................................742 II. THEACTTHAT WAS NEVERAPPLIED ..........................747 A. The Parricide Act and the Crawford Case.........................747 B. Scotorum Histoia ................................750 C Thomas Caig .............. ..... .............752 D The anicideAct in Context....... .............753 E The Impact of the Parricide Act.. .....................755 E Sir George Mackenzie. .......................757 G. Alexander Bayne. .......................... 758 H The Case ofPhilp Standsfield. .......... ......759 L DavidHwne. ....................... ......760 J Is the ParricideAct Stll in Force?......... . ...............761 III. No ONE SHOULD BENEFIT FROM HIS OWN WRONG .... .....764 O 2013 John MacLeod and Reinhard Zimmermann. * John MacLeod is a Lecturer in Commercial Law at the University of Glasgow. ** Reinhard Zimmermann is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law and Professor at the Bucerius Law School in Hamburg. 741

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