101 Ky. 113 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1897
delivered tee opinion op the court.
Appellant instituted this suit in the Hart Circuit Court on the 19th day of April, 1895, as administrator of the estate of Julia Ann Smith, alleging that on the 15th day of December, 1887, the said Julia Ann Smith departed this life intestate, her husband having died a few years before intestate, and that said Julia Ann Smith left surviving her fourchildren as the only heirs-at-law, all of whom were over twenty-one years of age at the date of her death except one.
The claim is for compensatory damages for the negligent killing of deceased by the appellee on the 15th day of September, 1887, more than seven years before the filing of the suit.
The appellee denied allegations of negligence, plead contributory negligence on the part of the deceased, and also plead and relied upon in a separate section the lapse of time and statute of limitation in bar of plaintiff’s right of recovery. To this appellant demurred, which demurrer was overruled, and being carried back to the petition same was dismissed and appellant appeals to this court and asks a reversal.
The only question involved in the case on appeal is the plea of limitation. It is contended by plaintiff that as his cause of action did not accrue until after the death of his decedent the statute did not begin to run until the appointment of plaintiff as administrator; and in support of this
The suit of plaintiff is brought under this provision of the statute.
■Section 3, article 3, chapter 71, provides that “a cause of action for injury to person of plaintiff * * * shall be commenced within one year next after the cause of action accrued and not thereafter.”
Section 2 of article 4, chapter 71, provides that “if a person entitled to bring suit in any of the actions mentioned in article 3 of this chapter, except for a penalty or forfeit
11 will assist us in seeking to arrive at a proper determination of the meaning of the words of the statute to trace chronologically in the order of their enactment the variations which have attended this statute since its original enactment in 1854.
Section 4 of the act of 1854 reads as follows: “Actions under this act shall be commenced within one year from the time of such death.”
This entire statute, with the limitations and all the exceptions to the same, appears in 2 Stanton’s Revised Statutes, page 510. Upon the adoption of the General Statutes the compilers transferred the whole act of 1854, except article 4. to chapter 57 of the General Statutes. They embraced other statutory provisions in sections 4 to 9, inclusive, of that chapter.
Section 3, chapter 63 of Stanton’s Revised Statutes, volume 2,page-128,provides:“An action for an injury to the person of plaintiff or of his wife, child, ward, apprentice or servant, and action for a malicious prosecution, * * * shall-be commenced within one year next after the cause of action accrued.”
The section in the General Statutes that corresponds with the one quoted is section 3, article 3, chapter 71, and reads as follows: “An action for an injury to the person of plain
It will be noted that the act of 1851, which thus gave right of action for the loss of life, expressly provided that the limitation should be one year from the date of such death; and later, in the general revision of the statutes, the limitation clause was transferred to the chapter on limitations and included in a section with others, and the phraseology was changed for the sake of brevity and conciseness.
It seems evident that it was the intention of the legislature to limit the time when actions could be instituted under this statute to one year from the day when the cause of action accrued, which undoubtedly was the date of the death. To hold that this suit may be commenced at any time within one year after the appointment of an administrator, who may be appointed any time within twenty years, is to hold that a radical change in the policy of the statute was worked simply by a change of phraseology, dictated merely by convenience in a general revision of the statutes, as the obvious purpose was to provide for a reasonable limitation of actions which did not accrue to a man in his lifetime, but which might accrue for the benefit of his estate after his death.
It is admitted by plaintiff that if the cause of action had accrued to his intestate in her lifetime, the running of a statute would not be stayed by her death until the grant of administration, but having begun would have continued; and it is not easy to see why upon principle any distinc
Mr. Chancellor Kent, on page 142, says: “The doctrine of an inherent equity creating an exception as to any disability where the statute of limitation creates none has been long and I believe uniformly exploded. General words of the statute must receive a general construction, and if there be no express exception the court can create none. It is a universal principle of construction that courts must find the intents of the legislature in the statute itself, and unless some ground can be found in the statute for restraining or enlarging the meaning of its general words they must receive a general construction; that is, to read it a® it is written without any arbitrary subtraction or addition to its meaning.” (See Beckford v. Wade, 17 Vesey, p. 87.)
The statute under which this suit was instituted provides “that actions under it must be commenced within twelve months after the cause of action shall have accrued.”
There is nothing in these words which imply in addition the existence of a person legally competent to enforce it by suit. If it did, why, in subsequent parts of the statute.
Nothing further need have been said, for the courts after having ascertained the existence of a right of action, would have next inquired whether there was any person in existence legally competent to enforce it by suit and compute the time accordingly; and if it was the intention to provide that the statute should only run where there is both a right of action and a person to assert it, why not insert a provision to that effect in express terms? There is no provision of the statute making the exception contended for in this case, nor do we perceive any reason why any such exception should have been made. If the cause of action does not accrue until after the death of the party who would have been entitled to sue the persons interested in the suit have the full time allowed by the statute in which to move in the matter to obtain a grant of administration and commence a suit. (See Tynes v. Walker, 35 Cal.)
Three of the heirs in this case were fully of age and each laboring under no disability. There was but one cause of action and there could have been but one recovery; and if we recognize the doctrine of implied exception contended for we do not perceive that a case like this comes within the principle. It certainly has less equity than the case where,
The cases cited by counsel as stated before were all for the recovery of personal property, and brought under the provisions of the common law; and even if the rule of construction on this question of limitation announced in them is the true one, which may be doubted, it certainly can not apply to the enforcement of rights acquired under a statute which is highly punitive in its character, as this, and which, under every rule of construction, must be most strictly construed.
For the reason indicated in this opinion the case is affirmed.