§ MR. J. CALDWELL (Lanark, Mid.)I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, whether complaint has reached him that in carrying out the public inquiry under the Fatal Accidents Inquiry (Scotland) Act, 1895, sheriff-substitutes limit the inquiry and the verdict of the jury to the immediate cause of death, and do not also consider the circumstances of the accident, and where the defect or blame arose; and, if such limitation is a due carrying out of the Act?
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEThe hon. Member laid before me yesterday the only complaint which has reached me on this subject. The case as stated did not appear to me to warrant the assumption in the question that sheriff-substitutes decline to consider the circumstances of the accident, as they are bound to do under the Statute. It is impossible to lay down any rule as to how far the inquiry should take account of the remoter causes of the death; but there are of course cases where the ascertainment of the immediate cause of death would not satisfy the requirements of the Act. I may add that the apportionment of blame for the accident is in my view no part of the primary object of the inquiry; though that question may sometimes be necessarily involved in the inquiry into the cause of death.