Pridgeon v. Greathouse

• Citation: 1 Idaho 359
• Parties: R. S. Pridgeon, Appellant, v. Henry Greathouse, Respondent.
• Decision Date: 01 January 1871
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

1 Idaho 359

R. S. Pridgeon, Appellant, v. Henry Greathouse, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Idaho

January 1, 1871

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.-The statute of limitations begins to run from the time when the action might properly be commenced.

IDEM.-A law extending the time within which actions may be commenced can only affect causes of action existing at the time of its passage. It cannot revive causes of action already barred and as to existing causes of action, the time must be computed from the period when the action might have been commenced, and not from the passage of the law extending the time.

APPEAL from the Second Judicial District, Ada County.

Rosborough & Preston, for the Appellant. H. E. Prickett, for the Respondent.

WHITSON J.,

delivered the opinion.

NOGGLE, C. J., and LEWIS, J., concurred.

This action was commenced on the seventh day of January, A. D 1869, in the district court of this territory, in and for Ada county, to recover a judgment obtained by R. S. Pridgeon against Henry Greathouse, in the state of Texas, on the nineteenth day of April, A. D. 1858. The defendant pleaded in the court below that he was not liable under the laws of this territory upon said judgment, for the reason that plaintiff's cause of action was barred by the statute of limitations of the territory.

The court below held for the defendant, and the plaintiff appeals to this court. The defendant had been a resident of this territory continuously from the fifteenth day of May, A. D. 1863, to the commencement of this action. The first statute providing the time within which an action might be commenced in this territory was passed January 23, A. D. 1864. Section 34 of that act, page 558, of the first session laws of Idaho, provides that an action upon any judgment, etc., obtained out of this territory, etc., can only be commenced within two years from the time the cause of action shall accrue. Could not Pridgeon have commenced his action on the 24th of January, A. D. 1864? We think he could. Then

had not his cause of action accrued? It certainly had; and he must bring his action within two years from that time. But before the cause of action had lapsed, an act had passed January 10, A. D. 1866, which provided that all such actions should "be commenced within three years after the party making such liability shall be a resident of this territory."

The phraseology of the section is changed a little, but it is evident that, in substance, nothing is changed, except the time within which such actions should be commenced. The section, as first passed, was evidently intended to require a person holding a foreign judgment to prosecute it within a certain time after the courts here might obtain jurisdiction of the person of the defendant; or, in other words, that the action should be commenced within two...