37 Md. 180 | Md. | 1872
delivered the opinion of the Court:
This action was instituted by the appellee against the Mayor and Council of Hagerstown, a municipal corporation, on the 4th of May, 1867; to recover damages for injury to his hardware store situated within the corporate limits of said town, and for the destruction, injury and taking away of his goods and other personal property therein deposited, done by riotous and tumultuous assemblages of people on the nights of the 24th and 25th days of May, 1862. The suit, in "form an action on the case, was brought under the provisions of Article 82 of the Code, which is a codification of the Act of 1835, ch. 137. The constitutional validity of this law has been recognized by several decisions of this Court, and was in no wise assailed in this case. Its provisions are familiar and need not be here stated at length. It is only necessary to say’that it fixes no limit of time within which suits under it may he brought and prescribes no form of action for the injured party, but simply declares that “the full amount of the damage so done shall he recoverable by the sufferer or sufferers by suit at law against the county, town or city within whose jurisdiction such
The defendants besides non cid. pleaded that the cause of action did not accrue within three years before suit instituted. The plaintiff demurred to the plea of limitations and that demurrer was sustained. The verdict and judgment were in favor of the plaintiff' upon issue joined on the plea of “not guilty,” and this appeal by the defendants presents the single question, was the demurrer to the plea of limitations rightfully sustained by the Court below ?
Before this suit was instituted, the Legislature had passed the Act of 1867, eh. 282, amending the second section of Article 82 of the Code, so as to provide “that any cause of action that may have heretofore arisen under the first section of this Article shall be prosecuted within the period of five years from the time of such cause accruing, and not after; and all causes under the first section hereafter accruing, shall be prosecuted within the period of three years from the time of the accrual of the same.”
The suit having been brought more than three and less than five years after the cause of action accrued, the power of the Legislature to extend the time of limitations in such cases is the question to which most of the very able and elaborate arguments of counsel both oral and written have been addressed. The Court has encountered great difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory determination of this question, and it was in consequence of this difficulty that a re-argument was ordered at the last term. It has now become our duty notwithstanding the embarrassments which still surround it, to dispose of the case.
To determine the statute to be invalid, it must of course be assumed that the existing law of limitations in
The annulling of this Act must also assume that it is not within the scope of legislative power to pass a law which will have the effect to revive, as between private individuals, a cause of action which was completely barred by limitations before its passage. It must be conceded that the weight of authority elsewhere sustains this proposition. Cooley’s Cons. Lim., 369. But it is not clear that the Maryland decisions would allow of its adoption here. They have not yet gone to that extent, and what has been said by this Court in Baugher vs. Nelson, 9 Gill, 299, would present a .serious obstacle to that result, at least so far as actions arising ex contractu are concerned. But upon this point we express no opinion for assuming this position to be sound, and that laws thus operating upon causes of action between private individuals are inoperative and void, still we are of opinion after the best consideration we have been able to give the subject, that this Act is of such a character that its validity must he sustained.
Before considering what its true character is it may be well to recur briefly, to some of the well settled principles which govern Courts when dealing with grave questions of this kind. They are always regarded as the most important that can be submitted for adjudication. It is certainly an attribute of judicial tribunals in this Country, to annul an Act of the Legislature when it is manifest that in passing it, the Legislature have violated or abused the powers granted to them by the people. But this high power is to he exercised with the most guarded circumspection and care. An Act emanating from a co-ordinate branch of the. Government is pre
All the cases to which we have been referred, or our own researches have disclosed, are suits or actions between individuals, and all the legislation declared null and void on this ground, has been such as operated directly upon and divested rights vested in private persons or private corporations. Such is not the character or effect of the law . here assailed. It is not directed against individuals or private corporations. It applies to the counties, incorporated towns and cities of the State, and to all of"them. Between these public bodies and private citizens, there is a wide and substantial distinction, with respect to vested rights protected from
They are instruments of government subject at all times to the control of the Legislature with respect to their duration, powers, rights and property. It is of the essence of such a corporation, that the government has the sole right as trustee of the public interest, at its own good will and pleasure, to inspect, regulate, control and direct the corporation, its funds and franchises. These are the unquestioned general doctrines on this subject, sustained by all the authorities. 9 G. & J., 397, 401; 12 G. & J., 399; 15 Md., 462, 490 to 492. In the case of East Hartford vs. Hartford Bridge Co., 10 How., 534, the Supreme Court in speaking of Towns, declares them to be “mere organizations for public purposes, liable to have their public powers, rights and duties modified or abolished at any moment by the Legislature. They are incorporated for public, and not private objects. They are allowed to hold privileges or property only for public puposes. The members are not shareholders, nor joint partners in any corporate estate, which they can sell or devise to others, or which can be attached and levied on for their debts ; hence, generally, the doings between them and the Legislature are in the nature of legis - lation rather than compact, and therefore to he considered as not violated by subsequent legislative changes.”
indeed, in view of the doctrines thus broadly and distinctly announced, it would be difficult to conceive how such corporations could have conferred upon them or could acquire any vested rights not subject to legislative control. The case of State, use of Washington County vs. The Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road Company, 12 G. & J., 399, is a very instructive one, as to the power the' Legislature may exercise over the supposed
How then stands the case before us? The Legislature, by the Act of 1835, embodied in the Code, had made these public corporations liable to be sued by the injured party; for neglect on the part of the corporate or municipal authorities to use due and reasonable diligence in exerting the powers with which the law had clothed them for the prevention or suppression of riots or mobs, by which individual citizens might suffer loss or injury. The power of the Legislature to impose this liability has not been questioned. Hor does it appear to be an arbitrary, unreasonable or unqualified requirement, for it carefully provides that “no such liability shall be incurred, by any county, incorporated town or city, unless
Judgment affirmed.