CHAPTER XVII. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS. I. THE PLEA OF LIMITATIONS GOES TO THE REMEDY AFFORDED BY THE LAW OF THE FORUM. II. III. STATE POWER TO LIMIT ACTIONS ON JUDGMENTS OF OTHER STATES. STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS DO NOT APPLY TO SUITS BY STATE OR NA- IV. STATUTES LIMITING SUITS ON JUDGMENTS OF OTHER STATES OPERATE V. IN SOME STATES A PREVIOUS BAR IN ANOTHER IS A GOOD PLEA. VI. ABILITY OF A CORPORATION OF ANOTHER STATE TO PLEAD THE STATUTE. I. THE PLEA OF LIMITATION GOES TO THE REMEDY AFFORDED BY State Courts. Pleas of the statute of limitations go to the remedy, not to the vital force of the obligation or cause of action, but to the practical right of enforcing it. They are, therefore, governed by the law of the forum or place of suit. Hence the several States may enact such reasonable statutes of limitation as they think proper, and such statutes will operate alike against the right of bringing suit or actions on records, judgments and decrees of the courts of other States, and on other contracts or liabilities arising in such other States, as upon the same description of obligations and liabilities respectively in the State where enacted. Therefore, the defense of the statute of limitations set up in the courts of a State to an action therein on a judgment of the court of a different State, is a good defense when true.1 The Same Rule in the United States Courts. So, likewise, as a defense to an action in the circuit court of the United States 1 McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312; Bank of Alabama v. Dalton, 9 How. 522; Miller v. Brenham, 68 N. Y. 83; Scudder v. Union Nat. Bank, 1 Otto, 406; Lincoln v. Battelle, 6 Wend. 475; Ruggles o. Keeler, 3 John. 264; Tou landon v. Lachenmeyer, 37 How. Pr. 145; Power v. Hathaway, 43 Barb. 214; Nash v. Tupper, 1 Caines, 402; Townsend v. Jennison, 9 How. 407: Angell on Limitations, § 65; Banning on Limitations, 8. or other United States court sitting within a State, a plea of the State statute of limitations is a good plea, if truly and well pleaded. The "laws of the several States, except where the Constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States shall otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at common law in the courts of the United States in cases where they apply." Thus the statutes of limitations of the several States, if no special provision is made in that respect by Congress, for a rule of decision in the courts of the United States have the same effect as they have in the State courts. Such statutes are laws of the forum, and operate alike upon all within the jurisdiction thereof.3 Action on Judgments of other States. It is well settled, therefore, that to an action on a judgment of another State, the statute of limitations of the State where the suit is brought is a good defense if pleaded, and the same has actually run the length of time requisite to bar the action, and the circumstances as to residence of the defendant in connection therewith, or other requirements of the local law, are such as to bring the case within the bar of the statute. The statute of limitations goes to the remedy. It is, therefore, a part of the procedure necessarily only of value while enforcing the cause of action. Each State provides its own remedies and will not enforce the remedies of any other. The lex loci fori is the guide of the court in their procedure. Foreign contracts, like foreign judgments, must yield obedience to the laws of the forum in seeking and obtaining remedies. 5 So, where a debt was contracted between two citizens of the same State and the debtor afterward removed to Minnesota and Judiciary Act of 1789, § 34. 9 McCluny . Silliman, 3 Pet. 270, 276, 278; McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312; Flowers v. Foreman, 23 How. 132; Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black. 599. 3 McCluny v. Silliman, 3 Pet. 270, 276, 277; Flowers v. Foreman, 23 How. 132. 4 Sohn v. Waterson, 1 Dill. 358; Jacquette v. Hugunon, 2 McL. 129; Pease v. Howard, 14 John. 470; McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312; Carson v. Hunter, 46 Mo. 467; Baker v. Brown, 18 Ill. 91; Van Alstine . Lemons, 19 Ill. 394; Allison v. Nash, 16 Tex. 560. See Richards v. Polgreen, 13 S. & R. 393; Angell on Limitations. $$ 84, 85. 5 Harrison v. Edwards. 12 Vt. 648; Le Roy v. Crowinshield, 2 Mas. 151; McElmoyle . Cohen, 13 Pet. 312; Bank of U. S. v. Donnally, 8 Pet. 361; Ruggles . Kecler, 3 John. 261; Jones v. Jones, 18 Ala. 248. there resided the length of time required by statute to bar an action, the statute of limitations of Minnesota was held a good defense to an action in that State on such debt.1 So likewise as to right of property.2 II. STATE POWER TO LIMIT ACTIONS ON JUDGMENTS OF OTHER STATES. The limitation of the statute to suits on judgments of another State, must be in reference to the date of the judgment sued on and not the date of the cause of action on which it was rendered. The Legislature of the State of Mississippi enacted a statute of limitations in words as follows: "No action shall be maintained on any judgment or decree rendered by any court without this State against any person who, at the time of the commencement of the action in which judgment or decree was or shall be rendered, was or shall be a resident of this State, in any case where the cause of such action would have been barred by any act of limitation of this State, if such suit had been brought therein." In an action in said State, on a judgment rendered in the State of Kansas, a plea of this statute was interposed by the defendant and of the facts requisite to bring the defense within its terms as a supposed statute of limitations. The case was taken to the United States Supreme Court, which tribunal held the statute to be in violation of that clause of the United States Constitution which provides that "full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State; and that Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such records shall be proved, and the effect thereof." Under this clause of the United States Constitution it is held that such judgments have the same effect in another State when sued on as in the State where rendered, and that although a State may pass statutes of limitations reasonably prescribing a limit of time in which remedies by suit are available, and although such statutes apply as the law of the remedy and the forum, when reasonable, in suits on judgments of another State, yet that statutes amounting as this one does to a total denial of remedy, are void.3 1 Fletcher v. Spaulding, 9 Minn. 64. 2 Waters v. Barton, 1 Cold. 450. Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290. See supra, Actions on Foreign Judg. III. STATUTES of LIMITATION DO NOT APPLY TO SUITS BY STATE OR NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS. Statutes of limitation of a State do not apply to the State itself, unless so expressed to be intended, or it clearly so appears to have been intended by the particular subject matter of limitation. Nor do they apply to the United States, for the legislation of a State can only apply to persons and things over which the State has jurisdiction. IV. STATUTES LIMITING SUITS ON JUDGMENTS OF OTHER STATES OPERATE PROSPECTIVELY. Statutes of a State limiting the time within which actions in her courts may be brought upon judgments of the courts of other States do not apply in their operation to judgments rendered before such statutes were enacted, unless they so express. And in calculating the time of limitation when applicable, it is to be reckoned in reference to the time of commencement of suit upon the judgment, and not in reference to the time of trial.4 V. IN SOME STATES A PREVIOUS BAR IN ANOTHER IS A GOOD PLEA. In some of the States a statutory provision exists in reference to limitations of actions, that where, by the statute of a different State, wherein the defendant previously resided, the cause of action sued on was fully barred, and the contract or cause of action ments, and infra, § 4. The States may prescribe the time within which actions may be brought, but as to existing causes they must allow a reasona ble time. See Hart v. Bostwick, 14 Fla. 162; Davidson v. Lawrence, 49 Geo. 335; Auld . Butcher, 2 Kan. 135; Pereless v. Watertown, 6 Biss. 79; Kimbro v. Bank of Fulton, 49 Geo. 419. 'Gibson v. Chouteau, 13 Wall. 92, 99; Lindsey v. Miller, 6 Pet. 6C6. Nullum tempus occurrit regi. Angell on Limitations, § 34; Broom's Legal Maxims, *66; Alton v. Illinois Trans. Co., 12 Ill. 38; Crane v. Reeder, 21 Mich. 24. But a State divests itself of this privilege when it engages in private business with an individual or corporation, and thus assumes the characteristics of a private person. Governor v. Woodworth, 63 Ill. 254. 2 Gibson v. Chouteau, 13 Wall. 92, 99; United States v. Hoar, 2 Mas. 311; People v. Gilbert, 18 John. 228; Swearingen v. U. S. 11 Gill & J. 373. 3 Murray v. Gibson, 15 How. 421; Boyd v. Barrenger, 23 Miss. 270; Garrett v. Beaumont, 24 Miss. 377. 4 Murray . Gibson, 15 How. 421; Moore v. Lobbin, 26 Miss. 304. had not arisen in the State where the suit is pending, that then the bar of the action in the other State is a good bar to the same in such suit.1 Where the debt is not only barred, but actually extinguished by the law of the place which governs the performance of the contract, then to a suit in another State upon such contract the foreign statute may be successfully interposed; for it is here not a law governing only the remedy, but it destroys the right, and that being destroyed, the contract is no longer enforcible in any forum if the plea is interposed; and particularly is this so where the property is in the possession of another, and the remedy has been cut off by lapse of time.3 Requisites of the Plea. To enable a defendant to obtain the benefit of this provision, his pleading must substantially show that the plaintiff's entire right of action had been fully barred by the statute of the other State while defendant there resided, and that the cause of action did not arise in the State where the suit is pending. But when the pleadings and evidence for the defense show, and the fact is satisfactorily established, that the cause of action has been fully barred by the laws of any country where the defendant has previously resided, then such bar amounts to the same defense in the court where the suit is pending as though it had arisen under the statute of the forum. VI. ABILITY OF THE CORPORATION OF ANOTHER STATE TO PLEAD THE STATUTE. The ruling in New York is, that a foreign corporation, that is, a private corporation created in a different State, cannot successfully plead the statute of limitations of New York in defense of an action against it in the New York courts, although such foreign corporation be the lessee of a railroad in New York, and be operating the same therein, and have property and a managing 1 Gillett v. Hall, 32 Iowa, 220; Lloyd . Perry, 32 Iowa, 144; Sloan v. Waugh, 18 Iowa, 224; Petchell v. Hopkins, 19 Iowa, 531. Lincoln v. Battelle, 6 Wend. 475; Brown v. Parker, 28 Wis. 21; Brent v. Chapman, 5 Cr. 358; Shelby v. Guy, 11 Wheat. 361; Foote's Private International Law, 420 et seq. 3 lbid. 4 Gillett v. Hall, 32 Iowa, 220. 5 Lloyd v. Perry, 32 Iowa, 144; Petchell v. Hopkins, 19 Iowa, 535; Sloan v. Waugh, 18 Iowa, 226; Webster v. Rees, 23 Iowa, 269. |