Koshkonong v. Burton

• Decision Date: 01 October 1881
• Citation: 104 U.S. 668,26 L.Ed. 886
• Parties: KOSHKONONG v. BURTON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

104 U.S. 668

104 U.S. 668

26 L.Ed. 886

KOSHKONONG v. BURTON.

October Term, 1881

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Wisconsin.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. L. B. Caswell for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. John A. Sleeper and Mr. Henry K. Whiton, contra.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.

The object of this action, which was commenced on the twelfth day of May, 1880, is to recover the amount due on bonds, with interest coupons attached, issued on the first day of January, 1857, by the town of Koshkonong, a municipal corporation of Wisconsin, pursuant to authority conferred by an act of the legislature of that State. They were made payable to the Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac Railroad Company, or its assigns, on the first day of January, 1877, at the American Exchange Bank, in the city of New York, with interest at the rate of eight per cent per annum, payable semi-annually, on the presentation of the interest warrants at that bank on the first day of each July and January, until the principal sum should be paid. Of the bonds in suit, with their respective coupons, Burton became the owner by written assignment from the railroad company, indorsed upon the bonds, under date of Nov. 16, 1857. None of the coupons have ever been detached from the bonds nor paid, except those maturing July 1, 1857, and Jan. 1, 1858.

The coupons are all alike except as to dates of a maturity. They are complete instruments, capable of sustaining separate actions, without reference to the maturity or ownership of the bonds. Commissioners of Knox County v. Aspinwall et al., 21 How. 539; Clark v. Iowa City, 20 Wall. 583; Amy v. Dubuque, 98 U. S. 470. The following is a copy of the one last due: 'The town of Koshkonong will pay to the holder hereof, on the first day of January, 1877, at the American Exchange Bank, in the city of New York, forty dollars, being for half-yearly interest on the bond of said town No. 22, due on that day. S. R. Crosby, clerk.'

The main question is whether the action, as to coupons maturing more than six years prior to its commencement, is not barred by the Statutes of Limitation of Wisconsin. The court below being of opinion that no part of plaintiff's demands was barred, gave judgment for the principal of the bonds, with interest from the first day of January, 1877, at the stipulated rate of eight per cent per annum until paid, and also for the amoun of each coupon in suit, with interest from its maturity at the rate of seven per cent per annum, the latter being the rate established by the local law in the absence of a special agreement by the parties.

The present writ of error questions the correctness of that judgment, as well because it overrules the defence of limitation to coupons maturing more than six years before the commencement of this action, as because it allows interest upon the amount of each coupon from its maturity.

The statutes of Wisconsin, in force when the bonds and coupons were issued, provided that 'all actions of debt founded upon any contract or liability, not under seal' (except such as are brought upon the judgment or decree of some court of record of the United States, or of a State or Territory of the United States), shall be commenced within six years after the cause of action accrued, and not afterwards; and that all personal actions on any contract, not otherwise limited by the laws of the State, shall be brought within twenty years after the accruing of the cause of action. Rev. Stat. Wis. 1849, sects. 14-22, pp. 644, 645.

We remark that the foregoing provisions, without substantial change of language, were taken from the statutes of the Territory of Wisconsin, adopted in 1839. Further, that the revision of 1849 did not, in terms, prescribe any limitation to actions upon sealed instruments. They were, therefore, embraced by the limitation of twenty years as to personal actions on contracts not covered by other provisions.

The revision of 1849 was superseded by one made in 1858, which went into operation on the first day of January, 1859. By the latter, as modified by an act passed in 1861, civil actions, other than for the recovery of real property, were required to be commenced within the following periods: Actions upon judgments or decress of courts of record of the State, and actions upon sealed instruments when the cause of action accrued in the State, within twenty years (Rev. Stat. Wis. 1858 c. 138, sect. 15); actions upon the judgments or decrees of courts of record of any State or Territory of the United States or of courts of the United States, and actions upon sealed instruments, when the cause of action accrued out of the State, within ten years (sect. 16); and actions upon contracts, obligations, or liabilities, express or implied, excepting those mentioned in sects. 15 and 16, within six years, the time to be computed, in each case, from the date where the cause of action accrued. Gen. Laws Wis. 1861, p. 302. The revision of 1858 also contained the general clause that, 'in any case where a limitation or period of law prescribed in any of the acts hereby repealed [which included the revision of 1849], for the acquiring of any right or barring of any remedy, or for any other purpose, shall have begun to run, and the same or any similar limitation is prescribed in the Revised Statutes, the time of limitation shall continue to run, and shall have the like effect, as if the whole period had begun and ended under the operation of the Revised Statutes.' Id., c. 191, sect. 13, p. 1038.

Thus stood the law of the State until the ninth day of March, 1872,—a little over fifteen years after these bonds and coupons were issued,—when an act was passed entitled 'An Act to limit the time for the commencement of action against towns, counties, cities, and villages on demands payable to bearer.' It provided that 'no action brought to recover any sum of money, on any bond, coupon, interest warrant, agreement, or promise in writing, made or issued by any town, county, city, or village, or upon any instalment of the principal or interest thereof, shall be maintained in any court, unless such action shall be commenced within six years from the time when such sum of money has or shall become due, when the same has been or shall be made payable to bearer, or to some person or bearer, or to the order of some person, or to some person or his order: Provided, that any such action may be brought wt hin one year after this act shall take effect: Provided further, that this act shall in no case be construed to extend the time within which an action may be brought under the laws heretofore existing.' Gen. Laws Wis. 1872, p. 56.

Our attention has also been called to certain sections in the revision of the statutes of Wisconsin of 1878, which went into operation on the first day of November of that year, superseding that of 1858, as well as the act of 1872. Those sections contain, in substance, the clauses first quoted from the revision of 1858, with the modifications made by the act of 1872. Rev. Stat. Wis. 1878, pp. 1015, 1016. It is to be observed in this connection—for it has some bearing upon what we shall presently say—that sect. 4220 of the revision of 1878, in terms, prescribed twenty years as the limitation for 'an action upon a sealed instrument when the cause of action accrues within this State, except those mentioned in sect. 4222;' while the latter section embraces, among others, 'an action upon any bond, coupon, interest warrant, or other contract for the payment of money, whether sealed or otherwise, made or issued by any town, county, city, village, or school district in this State,'—thus indicating that the framers of the revision of 1878 regarded municipal securities for the payment of money as belonging to the class of sealed instruments. We observe, also, that the revision of 1878 contains a provision in reference to those cases in which limitation had commenced to run, similar to that already quoted from the revision of 1858. Rev Stat. 1878, sect. 4984; Rev. Stat. 1858, p. 1038.

From the foregoing summary it will be seen that by the local law, when the bonds in suit were issued, all civil actions for debt, founded on contract or liability, not under seal (except actions upon judgments or decrees of some court of record of the United States, or of a State or Territory), could be brought within six years after the cause of action accrued, and not afterwards; while such actions, if founded on contract or liability, under seal, would not be barred until twenty years after the cause of action accrued. If, as contended by plaintiff, the question of limitation is to be determined exclusively by the revision of 1849, if force when the bonds were issued, and if, as is further insisted, an action on municipal bonds and coupons, such as are here in suit, is, within the meaning of that revision, 'founded on contract or liability not under seal,' it is clear that, without reference to the statute of 1872, this action is barred as to all coupons maturing more than six years before its commencement, whether such coupons were separated or not from the bonds to which they were originally attached. This, upon the authority of Amy v. Dubuque (98 U.S. 470), with the doctrines of which we are entirely satisfied. We there said, construing the statutes of Iowa, upon the subject of limitation, that suits upon unpaid coupons, such as those in suit, might be maintained in advance of the maturity of the principal debt; that 'upon the non-payment at maturity of each coupon the holder had a complete cause of action. In other words, he might have instituted his action to recover the amount thereof at their respective maturities. From that date, therefore, the statute commenced to run against them. . . . Upon principle, his failure or neglect to detach the coupon and present it for payment at the time...