MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This case arises from personal injuries allegedly sustained by the minor plaintiff on defendant’s land in Delaware on July 29, 1963. Suit was started on April 19, 1968. Defendant has asserted the Pennsylvania Statute of Limitations, Act of June 24, 1895, P.L. 236, § 2, 12 P.S. § 34, as an affirmative defense and has moved to dismiss.
Sitting as a diversity court, we are of course bound to apply Pennsylvania conflict of laws rules. Klaxon Company v. Stentor Manufacturing Company,
The question, then, is not what statute is to be applied, for that is clear. Rather, the question is whether, under the circumstances of this case, a Pennsylvania court would hold that the statute was tolled. Neither the diligence of counsel nor our research has disclosed any authority, either in Pennsylvania or elsewhere, directly on point. However, the statute itself is clear enough. It provides :
“Every suit hereafter brought to recover damages for injury wrongfully done to the person, in case where the injury does not result in death, must be brought within two years from the time when the injury was done and not afterwards; * *
Pennsylvania courts have consistently shown a reluctance to erode the rather sweeping, general and mandatory terms of the statute. Thus, it has been said that there is no tolling as to minors, Schmucker v. Naugle,
The statute here involved speaks broadly of “every suit.” There is no exception in the Act that would diminish its effect where a cause of action arising in a foreign state is asiserted in Pennsylvania against a non-resident of that foreign state. And in Peterson v. Delaware River Ferry Co.,
“The act of 1895, as held in the case referred to, is a general act in the nature of a statute of limitations. Its terms are general, and make no exceptions in favor of persons under disability. The settled rule is that infants, as well as all others, are bound by the provisions of such statutes. ‘A savings from the operation of statutes for disabilities must be expressed or it does not exist.’ Warfield v. Fox,53 Pa.St. 382 . ‘There is no limitation in the act which excludes persons under disabilities. “Any person” means every person. * * * ’ ”
It is true, as plaintiff points out, that where a cause of action arises in Pennsylvania and the defendant becomes a non-resident of that state, the statute is tolled. Act of May 22, 1895, P.L. 112, § 1, 12 P.S. § 40. However, that Act plainly does not apply to a foreign cause of action. Shaffer’s Estate,
Exceptions to statutes of limitation are not favored and courts are not free to engraft upon the statutes such exceptions. Cf. Otis v. Bennett,
ORDER
And now, this 14th day of February 1969, it is ordered that the defendant’s motion to dismiss be and it hereby is granted and the complaint is dismissed with prejudice.
Notes
. Hartwell v. Piper Aircraft Corporation,