Definition
A decree of forthcoming is a judicial order in Scots law that follows a successful arrestment, directing that the arrested funds or property be released and applied toward satisfaction of the arresting creditor's debt. It is the enforcement step that converts an arrestment — which merely freezes assets in a third party's hands — into actual payment or delivery. Without a decree of forthcoming, the arrestment holds the assets in suspense but does not transfer them. The decree completes the process, entitling the creditor to receive the arrested sum or effects up to the amount of the debt owed.
Common Confusion
A decree of forthcoming is not a final judgment on the underlying debt — it presupposes that judgment or a sufficient ground for diligence already exists. Researchers sometimes conflate the term with the arrestment itself. Arrestment is the freezing mechanism; the decree of forthcoming is the release and transfer mechanism that follows. Neither should be confused with an English garnishment order, which accomplishes a similar commercial purpose but through an entirely different procedural framework.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially a Scots law term of art and will appear almost exclusively in sources dealing with Scottish legal procedure, comparative civil procedure, or historical British jurisprudence. Researchers working in American or English legal materials will encounter it rarely and almost always in a comparative context.
Several navigational points bear emphasis:
First, the term appears as a compound: "decree of forthcoming" is the full operative phrase. Searching for "forthcoming" alone in historical legal databases will return a large volume of irrelevant results, as the word carries its ordinary English meaning in many other contexts. Precision in search strings is essential.
Second, the procedural sequence matters for understanding any source that references the term. The chain is: (1) arrestment — assets frozen in the hands of a third party (the arrestee); (2) action of forthcoming — a proceeding to compel delivery; (3) decree of forthcoming — the court order completing enforcement. Sources that mention only one step in this chain may be incomplete or may presuppose familiarity with the others.
Third, American legal dictionaries that include this term — including Black's and Bouvier's — treat it as a foreign law reference, not as operative domestic doctrine. Researchers should not assume the term describes a procedure available in any American jurisdiction. Its presence in American dictionaries reflects the encyclopedic tradition of those works, not American adoption of the concept.
Fourth, Burrill's entry is the most procedurally precise of the three dictionary sources and cites Kames' Equity directly, which can serve as a starting point for deeper research into the Scottish equitable context surrounding diligence against moveables.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three historical dictionaries agree on the essential definition: a decree following arrestment that entitles the creditor to the arrested funds or effects. The alignment across Black's, Bouvier's, and Burrill's is tight, reflecting a stable term of art with limited doctrinal ambiguity.
The substantive differences are in depth. Black's and Bouvier's offer parallel, condensed accounts that rely on Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland as authority. Burrill's goes further, specifying that the decree entitles the creditor to demand the arrested sum "to be applied for payment of the debt upon which the arrestment and forthcoming proceeded" — language that captures the applied-payment character of the remedy more precisely. Burrill also cites Kames' Equity (vol. 2), providing a primary source anchor that the other dictionaries omit.
None of the three dictionaries elaborate on contested procedural questions — such as the position of competing creditors, the treatment of contingent debts at time of arrestment, or the effect of the debtor's insolvency intervening between arrestment and decree. Researchers requiring that level of detail will need to go beyond dictionary sources to Scottish institutional writers (Stair, Erskine, Bell) and to the Kames reference Burrill cites.
Jurisdictional Note
This is a Scots law doctrine with no direct American or English common law equivalent. It falls within the Scottish law of diligence — the body of law governing enforcement of civil judgments against a debtor's property. Researchers working in any jurisdiction outside Scotland should treat this term as descriptive of a foreign procedure.