Crothers v. Edison Electric Co.

• Decision Date: 31 October 1906
• Docket Number: 13,918.
• Citation: 149 F. 606
• Parties: CROTHERS v. EDISON ELECTRIC CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

149 F. 606

CROTHERS v. EDISON ELECTRIC CO. et al.

No. 13,918.

United States Circuit Court, N.D. California.

October 31, 1906

F. H Gould, for plaintiff.

H. H Trowbridge, for defendant Edison Electric Co.

J. W McKinley, for defendant Southern Pacific Co.

WOLVERTON District Judge.

This is an action to recover damages for the death of plaintiff's son, alleged to have been caused through the negligence of the defendant corporations. The casualty occurred December 7 1904, and the action was commenced April 9, 1906. The statute of limitations in force when the cause accrued prescribed two years for bringing the action. On March 18, 1905, the Legislature of California amended the law limiting the period for commencing an action in such cases to one year, which amendment became effective May 18, 1905. The period of time that had elapsed, therefore, between the time of the casualty and the taking effect of the amendment, was 5 months and 11 days, and the action was commenced 10 months and 22 days thereafter, being 16 months and 2 days after the cause accrued. The defendants interposed a demurrer to the complaint, challenging the plaintiff's right to maintain the action, on the ground that the statute of limitations had run when the action was instituted.

Counsel for the respective parties are entirely agreed that the limitation prescribed by the amendment is the one that applies to the present controversy, and the single point of difference is as to when the statute began to run with reference to the action-- whether from the time of the casualty, or from the time when the amendment became operative. It is insisted on the part of plaintiff that it began running from the latter date, while, on the other hand, it is maintained that it began with the former.

The general rule applicable, together with the appropriate canon of interpretation, is pertinently stated by Mr. Wood, in his work on Limitations (section 12), as follows:

'If before the statute bar has become complete the statutory period is changed, and no mention is made of existing claims, it is generally held that the old law is not modified by the new, so as to give to both statutes a proportional effect; but that the time past is effaced, and the new law governs. That is, the period provided by the new law must run upon all existing claims, in order to constitute a bar. In other words, the statute in force at the time the action is brought controls, unless the time limited by the old statute for commencing an action has elapsed, while the old statute was in force, and before the suit is brought, in which case the suit is barred, and no subsequent statute can renew the right or take away the bar. The question, however, as to whether the statute is to have a retrospective operation, is one of construction, to be determined from the language of the act and the intention of the Legislature to be gathered from the act itself and the subject-matter to which it applies; the rule being, as previously stated, that a statute will not be permitted to have a retrospective operation unless such was clearly the intention of the Legislature.'

In harmony with this enunciation of the law is the case of Sohn v. Waterson, 17 Wall. 596, 21 L.Ed. 737, where almost the exact point in controversy is determined. There a new statute had been adopted limiting the time for commencing an action upon a judgment from another state to two years 'next after the cause or right of such action shall have accrued. ' The court, in deciding the case, speaking through Mr. Justice Bradley, says:

'The court below held that as the defendant was a resident of Kansas when the act took effect, the time of limitation began to run in his favor as against the present cause of action from that period, and that the action might have been brought at any time within two years afterwards, and not having been brought within that period it was barred. * * * A statute of limitations may undoubtedly have effect upon actions which have

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