Transcript

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NARRATOR

In August of 1928, May Donoghue and a friend decided to visit the Wellmeadow Cafe in Paisley for a pear and ice, and in the case of May Donoghue, an ice cream and a bottle of ginger beer.

WAITER

Hello there. A table for two, yes?

MAY DONOGHUE

Yes.

KENNETH CAMPBELL

It has human interest in a very stark way. The two ladies going to the cafe and buying ginger beer.

NARRATOR

Everything was paid for by May Donoghue's friend.

WAITER

Ladies, what would you like?

FRIEND

Um, can I have a pear and ice, please.

NARRATOR

Now, the act of buying a bottle of ginger beer for a friend would not be unusual now, and it wasn't then. It was a transaction that occurred hundreds of times each day in countless cafes across the country.

LORD KINCLAVEN

It appeals to people of all ages, of all interests, and of all levels.

WAITER

Pear and ice cream for you, was it?

NARRATOR

But when her friend bought May Donahue that bottle of ginger beer, the transaction - and its aftermath - formed the basis of one of the most celebrated and important Scottish cases in world legal history.

MAY DONOGHUE

Thank you. Thank you.

DOROTHY BAIN

When you have the combination of important precedent and an interesting story, it undoubtedly captures the imagination of lawyers.

NARRATOR

For in her Stevenson manufactured bottle of ginger beer, May Donoghue didn't just get ginger beer -

FRIEND

It's hard to see in.

NARRATOR

- she discovered something else as well.

FRIEND

Oh.

JOHN CAIRNS

It's got Paisley, a cafe, a friend, ice cream, ginger beer, and this decomposed snail. It's just kind of perfect.

NARRATOR

The decisions of courts in cases such as Donoghue v Stevenson are hugely important and have a significant impact on the development of the law, and as such, need to be recorded. They are recorded in volumes of law reports.

JOHN CAIRNS

Law reporting really dates from the 16th century when judges started to keep records of cases decided in the Court of Session. Through the 17th century, judicial collections known as practics were made. And some judges' collections were printed. The first of all were those of Lord Stair.

In 1693, there is the great innovation. For the first time, people can attend the inner house from the judges, give their opinions on the case. Before that, it had always been done in secret. And from the 1690s onwards, the faculty of advocates becomes very keen to collect decisions of the court.

In the later 18th century, Scots lawyers come to value precedent. They start to develop the idea that through the argument between the lawyers, legal points are well worked out. And so the lawyers came to see judicial decision making as an important way of identifying the principles that they started to think were inherent in the law.

Then linked to that were reforms in the Scottish court structures in the early 19th century. And the Scottish courts moved away from the collegiate nature of the bench, with a large bench deciding, to what we would now see as first instance and second instance structure in the Court of Session. And this, of course, made precedent clearer. And of course, it made for the opinions of the judges more significant, because we would have one judge focusing on a point, and you could have what, by the 1830s, the Scots were starting to call the ratio decidendi, the principle which had been decided by an individual case.

ANDREW STEWART

The court in Edinburgh was making decisions, which was very important. It was establishing principles of law, elucidating principles of law. And that information about what it was doing, what decisions were making, had to get out there to the general public, had to get out there to the lawyers.

ALISON STIRLING

Faculty of advocates was interested in getting a collection of reports for the use by the advocates in the court in the early 19th century.

ANDREW STEWART

And the way to do that was to have reports of the decisions which were publicly available and that could be used by lawyers in advising their clients and by the general public in knowing what the law is. Session cases have been around for quite a long time. They first formally started in 1821.

There are three divisions within it - the High Court of Justiciary and the reports from the High Court of Justiciary, which is the Supreme Criminal Court in Scotland. Then there are the decisions of the Court of Session, which is the Supreme Civil Court within Scotland. And then we also have the decisions of the United Kingdom's Supreme Court in Scottish matters.

MAN

The practise in Scotland of detaining persons for up to six hours...

NARRATOR

For nearly 200 years, session cases have provided an authoritative record of the most important case law of Scotland.

JIM CORMACK

In essence, the most significant Scots law report that we've all grown up with since we were in law school so we're familiar with it and we obviously probably go to it first if there's a session case report, you would use it first because it's the authoritative one.

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