The Outer House (abbreviated as CSOH in
neutral citations) is one of the two parts of the
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
Court of Session, which is the
supreme civil
Civil may refer to:
*Civic virtue, or civility
*Civil action, or lawsuit
* Civil affairs
*Civil and political rights
*Civil disobedience
*Civil engineering
*Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism
*Civilian, someone not a membe ...
court
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and carry out the administration of justice in Civil law (common law), civil, C ...
in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
. It is a
court of first instance
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accor ...
, although some statutory
appeals are remitted to it by the other more senior part, the
Inner House
The Inner House is the senior part of the Court of Session, the supreme civil court in Scotland; the Outer House forms the junior part of the Court of Session. It is a court of appeal and a court of first instance. The chief justice is ...
. Those appeals are made from the
Sheriff court, the court of first instance for low value civil causes in the
court system of Scotland.
Judges in the Outer House are referred to as "Lord
ame or "Lady
ame, or as
Lord Ordinary
A Lord Ordinary is any judge in the Outer House of the Scottish Court of Session
The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the H ...
. They are drawn from the
Senators of the College of Justice and they sit singly, sometimes with a
jury
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.
Juries developed in England du ...
of 12 in
personal injury
Personal injury is a legal term for an injury to the body, mind or emotions, as opposed to an injury to property. In common law jurisdictions the term is most commonly used to refer to a type of tort lawsuit in which the person bringing the suit ...
and
defamation
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defi ...
actions. Jurisdiction is extensive and extends to all kinds of
civil claims unless expressly excluded by
statute. Some classes of cases, such as
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
disputes and
exchequer causes, are heard by designated judges. Prior to 1856 the jurisdiction for exchequer causes was that of the
Court of Exchequer, which has been transferred to the
Court of Session with one of the Lords Ordinary required to be Lord Ordinary in Exchequer Causes, this was restated by the
Court of Session Act 1988.
[Chapter 48 – Exchequer causes: ]
Final (and some important procedural) judgments of the Outer House may be appealed to the Inner House. Other judgments may be so appealed with leave.
References
Court of Session
{{Scotland-law-stub