William and Henry Knox and Co Merchants in Dunbar v. William Law, Esq Sheriff-depute of Haddington, and Others

Pursuers William Knox and Henry Knox, merchants in Dunbar, supplied barley to brewers in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Knox and Knox alleged that defender William Law, the sheriff of the county of East Lothian, had set the fiar (fixed price) of barley too high. An Act of Sederunt in 1723 established the process by which a sheriff of a given county in Scotland would set friars. The Act required the sheriff to appoint a jury of at least eight landowners in the county, with knowledge of the good at issue, to set the price. According to the pursuers, the sheriff's responsibilities were purely ministerial, setting a price agreeable with the verdict of the jury. Knox and Knox alleged that Law did not comply with the 1723 Act when he set the fiar for barley.