83 Pa. 422 | Pa. | 1877
delivered the opinion of the court, March 28th 1877.
The defendants below pleaded actio non accrevit infra sex annos. To this plea the plaintiffs demurred, and thus raised an issue of law. The issues of fact were decided adversely to the defendants by the jury. The court below sustained- the demurrer and entered judgment upon the verdict. The single question here is, whether the plaintiffs were entitled to judgment upon the demurrer.
The defendants were collection agents. The declaration was in debt for not paying over certain moneys collected by them. It was contended by the plaintiffs that inasmuch as the action was not founded upon a contract in fact, but upon one that arises from an implication of law, it was not within the terms of the Statute of Limitations. The language of said statute is, “ all actions of debt grounded upon any lending or contract without specialty.” Richards v. Bickley, 13 S. & R. 399, was cited as sustaining the proposition that the statute does not apply in an action of debt against an attorney for not paying over money collected by him. No such point was decided in that case. It was an action of debt upon a foreign judgment, in which it was alleged that the foundation of the judgment was a specialty. The court held that in such case the statute was not a good plea. It is true, Mr. Justice Duncan, in delivering the opinion of the court, classes debt against an attorney for money received by him among the instances in which the statute does not apply, and refers to Comyn’s Digest, vol. 7, p. 415, as authority. I have examined the first American (from the fifth English) edition of Comyn, and find that it makes no reference to debt against an attorney. It does enumerate several instances in which the statute
The judgment is reversed, and judgment is now entered here in favor of the defendants upon the demurrer.