10 N.C. 608 | N.C. | 1825
The disabilities expressed in our statute of limitation have all the same effect; neither of them is greater or less than another. A person whether labouring under all or any one of them, is equally excused bringing suits, because all or any one of them incapacitates and destroys free agency. All of them create no greater incapacity than one of them. Incapacity excuses from suing, and incapacities arise from the different sources mentioned in the acts. If, then, one disability excuses from not suing as much as all would, and all disabilities are precisely alike, it would follow that if any of these disabilities existed at the time when the action accrued, the person labouring under them should be excused for not suing whilst any of them continue. If there is no disability at the time the action accrues, the statute of limitation will not be suspended by any intervening one, because at the time the action accrued the person was a free agent and might have commenced one. I am aware that by taking the disabilities mentioned in our act in detail, and considering them as distinct pro
The Plaintiff Mary Davis, attained her full age on the first January 1808, at which time she was under coverture; and it is contended on behalf of the defendant, that she was bound to sue w’ithin three years from that period, as the proviso of the act extends only to that disability which existed when the cause of action accrued.
It has been taken for granted in the argument, that, on the authority of adjudged cases, if Mary was obliged to sue within three years after her coming of age, and the statute has barred her right, it operates also to bar the right of the co-plaintiff, who was and still continues under disability. It is not necessary for me to express any opinion on the very novel question of law which the peculiar facts of this case present; nor should I be willing to do so without argument and consideration. But I would remark in passing, that in all the cases wherein it has been held that the right of those co-plaintiffs who are under disability is barred by the neglect to sue within due time, of those who were of ability, there was one or more of the plaintiffs free from all the incapacities enumerated in the statute. And Perry v. Jackson, in 4 Term Rep. 519. was decided on the reasoning that the proviso was introduced into the statute in order to protect the interests of those persons, which there was no one of competent age, of Competent understanding, or competent in point of residence,
It is contended on the part of the defendant, that as the cause of action accrued when Mary was a minor, she was bound to sue within three years after arriving at the age of twenty-one years, whereas a period of eleven years beyond that time had elapsed; and that the disability of coverture having supervened to that of infancy, does not give her three years after the dissolution of the cover-ture; that the exceptions in the proviso are to be referred respectively to that disability which existed at the time the cause of action accrued, and do not extend to any occurring afterwards. In support of this objection several cases have been read, which tend strongly to show that is the true construction of the act; and though it may be discovered upon an attentive and critical examination of it, it is not the obvious one. On the contrary, the ge
lam satisfied from an attentive examination of the act of 1T15, that this is not its true and grammatical construction, but that, according to its terms, the infant must bring the action within three years after his, or her, coming of full age, although he or she shall be covert, non compos, imprisoned, or beyond sea, before that period arrived; that the non compos should bring his action within three years after he became of sound mind, although during his infirmity he became imprisoned, and so on as to the other exceptions. The act, however, has received a different construction, occasioned, perhaps, by its never having undergone a rigid scrutiny; but more probably from the priviledges and immunities possessed by persons at the common law. who laboured under these several disabilities, which by general acceptance have been transferred to the interpretation of the act.
At the common law, no laches were accounted in infants and feme coverts, for not making a claim or entry to avoid descents; and in discussing this subject Littleton states, “ that if husband and wife as in right of the wife, have title and right to enter into lands which another hath in fee or in fee tail, and such tenant dieth seized, &c. in such case the entry of the husband is taken away upon the heir which is in by descent. But if the husband die, then the wile may well enter upon the issue which is in by descent, for that no laches of the husband shall turn the wife or her heirs to any prejudice, or loss in such case, but that the wife and her heirs may well enter where such descent is eschued during coverture,” (Littleton sec■ 403.) In his commentary on this section Lord Coke, after stating that the law' would be different if a feme sole
This construction of the case of cumulative disabilities, thus clearly stated by Lord Coke, has, by long acquiescence, attached itself to the act of limitations, and cannot directly be changed by any authority less than that of the legislature. The opinion has been general, if not universal, in this state, for the last thirty years, that such is the meaning of the act; and it is not from matter decided only where the point has been raised upon argument, but also from the long continued practice of the Courts, without objection taken, that the rules of law are collected. (15 East 225.) I therefore think the judgment should be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
