Brian v. Banks
Brian v. Banks
Concurring Opinion
concurred in the judgment as follows:
1. An indorsement of a promissory note, past due, for a valuable consideration, is a new contract, and the statute of limitations begins to run in favor of the indorser only from the date of the indorsement.
2. The Statute of Limitations was legally suspended for one year, by the Act of December, 1860.
3. The ordinance of the Convention, passed 1st November, 1865, declaring the statute of limitations, in all cases, civil and criminal, to be, and to have been, suspended, from 19th January, 1861, and that it shall so continue until civil government is fully restored, or until the Legislature shall otherwise direct, h'as been legalized by the new Constitution and ordinance of the Convention of 1868, so far as it does not divest vested rights. This made it valid, so far as it was prospective, but whether it could restore to plaintiff a right of action lost by the running of the statute for the full period prescribed by law, before its passage, quere ?
4. In this case, after deducting the year, during which it was suspended, the statute had not fully run in favor of the indorser, -who is the party litigant, at the date of the Ordinance of 1865, by which it was suspended for the future, as above specified. For these reasons, I concur in the judgment pronounced by a majority of the Court, while I do not assent to all the propositions announced by them in the decision.
Opinion of the Court
The error assigned to the judgment of the Court below in this case, is the ruling and deciding that the statute of limitations in this State did not run against the plaintiff’s demands during the war, and that his right of action thereon was not barred. The plaintiff’s action was instituted' on the 26th February, 1866, to recover the amount due on two promissory notes against the maker and indorser, one of which was dated 20th October, 1857, due one day after date, and endorsed on the 11th July, 1860. The other note was dated 29th July, 1858, due one day after date, and indorsed • on the 26th January, 1859. The defendants plead the statute of limitations in bar of the plaintiff’s right to recover. The argument for the plaintiff in error is, that the statute having commenced to run, it was not suspended by the Act of 1861, because that Act was passed by an illegal Legislature. This argument, if true, proves too much for the defendants in the Court below, now plaintiff in error here. If there were no legal legislatures during the war, then there were no legal courts, in which the plaintiff below could have sued upon the notes. It is the judgment of a majority of this Court, that inasmuch as the Statute of 1860 suspended the running of the statute of limitations for one year, and the Act of 1861 suspended the running of the statute during the war,
Whatever may be said in regard to a prescriptive right to either real or personal property, under the provisions of the Code, having become vested by lapse of time, as prescribed thereby, under the 10th paragraph of the 11th article of the Constitution of 1868; still, there can be no vested right in the remedy under the statute of limitations. If a prescriptive right to property had commenced running, in favor of the possessor, prior to the war, whether it continued to run during the war, would depend, it would seem, upon whether, during that time, there was any disability to sue in the courts.
Let the judgment of the Court below be affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Moses Brian, , in error v. Martha B. Banks, in error
- Cited By
- 4 cases
- Status
- Published