Eingartner v. Ill. Steel Co.

• Decision Date: 02 June 1899
• Parties: EINGARTNER v. ILLINOIS STEEL CO.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

103 Wis. 373

79 N.W. 433

EINGARTNER

v.ILLINOIS STEEL CO.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

June 2, 1899.

Syllabus by the Judge.

1. A statute of limitations, when fully run upon a claim, whether the demand relate to title to real or personal property, or a money demand on contract or sounding in tort, constitutes a vested property right within the meaning of the constitution, and its possessor is entitled to the benefit of the constitutional guaranties for the protection of the title to property and property rights.

2. While the statute of limitations acts on the remedy, when the period of limitation has run the bar of the statute, itself, is property and cannot be taken from its possessor adversely; and the effect of that vested right is to extinguish the claim upon which it operates, and in that sense it is properly said that the bar of the statute of limitations extinguishes the right. It is as effective as payment or any other satisfaction of a claim, because the remedy to enforce it cannot be restored or any remedy given in place of it contrary to the will of the owner of the right of defense.

3. The law treats of rights that may be enforced. When, by lapse of time, a right ceases to be more than a moral obligation and cannot be restored adversely, in contemplation of law it has ceased to exist altogether.

4. If a citizen of a sister state, having a claim against another such citizen, allow the period limited by law for its enforcement in the courts of such state to expire, he cannot enforce such claim in the courts of this state if the right of defense against such claim in the courts of his own state is a vested property right.

Appeal from superior court, Milwaukee county; Geo. E. Sutherland, Judge.

Action by Joseph Eingartner against the Illinois Steel Company.

Action by an employé to recover of his employer compensation for a personal injury alleged to have been caused by negligence of such employer in respect to neglecting to furnish plaintiff with a reasonably safe place in which to do his work. Both parties were citizens of the state of Illinois at the time the cause of action arose, and continued such down to the time of the commencement of this action. The period within which an action could have been commenced to enforce the alleged liability in the state of Illinois expired before this action was commenced and the facts in that regard were duly pleaded in defendant's answer as a bar to the enforcement of plaintiff's claim in the courts of this state. Evidence was produced tending to prove the allegations of the complaint. It was established on the part of defendant, beyond controversy, that plaintiff's claim was barred in Illinois by its statute of limitations. Such statute, and the decisions under it, were offered and received in evidence. The facts in regard to such statute being uncontroverted, no question on that branch of the case was submitted to the jury. There was a special finding of fact by the jury in plaintiff's favor on all other branches of the case. A motion by plaintiff's attorneys for judgment on the verdict was denied. A motion by defendant's attorneys for judgment in its favor notwithstanding the verdict was granted, and the decision duly excepted to. Judgment was entered in defendant's favor and plaintiff appealed. Affirmed.J. W. Wegner and C. H. Van Alstyne, for appellant.

Van Dyke, Van Dyke & Carter, for respondent.

MARSHALL, J. (after stating the facts).

This is the sole question we are called upon to decide in this case: If a citizen of a sister state, having a claim against another such citizen, allow the period limited by law for its enforcement in the courts of such state to expire, can he then come into this state and enforce such claim in its courts if the necessary service can be obtained to give the court jurisdiction of the defendant in the action?

It is conceded that the effect of the statute of limitations of this state extinguishes the right upon which it has completely operated. Brown v. Parker, 28 Wis. 21;Knox v. Cleveland, 13 Wis. 245;Sprecker v. Wakeley, 11 Wis, 432;Kahn v. Lesser, 97 Wis. 217, 72 N. W. 739. It is further conceded that if the statute of limitations of the state of Illinois has the same effect, plaintiff's claim was extinguished before this action was commenced, and hence defendant was entitled to the judgment rendered. It is the universal rule that so long as a limitation act operates on the remedy only, the law of the forum governs. When the right itself has been extinguished by the effect of the limitation act upon it, such effect attaches to and becomes inseparable from such right in the courts of this state.

Expressions of like character as above are found in numerous adjudications, yet the subject is frequently reviewed by the courts for want of an accurate understanding of terms. In Baker v. Stonebraker, 36 Mo. 338, this statement of the rule was made: “The doctrine is well established that where the limitation operates to extinguish the contract or debt, the case no longer falls within the law of limitations on the remedy merely. In such cases when the debt or judgment is sued on in another state, the lex loci contractus and not the lex fori is to govern.” To the same effect are Story, Confl. Laws, 582; Shelby v. Guy, 11 Wheat. 361;Perkins v. Guy, 55 Miss. 153;Woodman v. Fulton, 47 Miss. 682;McCracken Co. v. Mercantile Trust Co. 84 Ky. 344, 1 S. W. 585;Wires v. Farr, 25 Vt. 41;Whitehurst v. Dey, 90 N. C. 542; Wood, Lim. Act. § 13.

What is meant by the term “extinguish the right” as used in the adjudications and by the text writers, in discussing the subject under consideration, is not actual satisfaction of the right by the operation of the statute of limitations. The idea is that a right to insist upon the statutory bar is a vested property right protected by the constitution, the effect of which is to forever prevent the judicial enforcement of the demand affected by it, against the will of the owner of the prescriptive right. Deprivation of the remedy under such circumstances, that there can be no adverse restoration of it, is a destruction or extinguishment of the right to which such remedy relates. The law deals only with enforceable rights, and if such a right be changed to a mere moral obligation, in a legal sense it no longer exists at all.

It follows necessarily that when a defense to a right has become vested beyond recall without consent of the person in whose favor it operates, so that his adversary is powerless to enforce such right beyond power of adverse restoration, it is, to all intents and purposes, as effectually satisfied as if paid or otherwise discharged. As the court put it in Woodman v. Fulton, supra, “The bar created by the statute of limitations is as effectual as payment or any other defense, and when once vested cannot be taken away even by the legislature.” That is the doctrine of this court expressed in many cases. In Sprecker v. Wakeley, supra, this rule was approved as to the effect of a completed limitation period upon the title to property. A bar produced by operation of the statutes of limitations to an action upon a contract is as effectual as payment or any other defense, and although it is a general principle that the statute bars only the remedy and does not destroy the right, yet where the defense...