Lewis v. Pawnee Bill's Wild West Company

• Decision Date: 06 May 1907
• Citation: 66 A. 471,22 Del. 316
• Parties: MARY E. LEWIS, plaintiff below, plaintiff in error, v. PAWNEE BILL'S WILD WEST COMPANY, a corporation of the State of New Jersey, defendant below, defendant in error
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

66 A. 471

22 Del. 316

MARY E. LEWIS, plaintiff below, plaintiff in error, v. PAWNEE BILL'S WILD WEST COMPANY, a corporation of the State of New Jersey, defendant below, defendant in error

Supreme Court of Delaware

May 6, 1907

Supreme Court, June Term, 1906.

WRIT OF ERROR to the Superior Court for New Castle County.

Judgment affirmed.

Robert H. Richards and John B. Hutton for plaintiff in error.

William S. Hilles and Frank H. Davis for defendant in error.

NICHOLSON CH., and SPRUANCE and GRUBB, J. J., sitting.

OPINION

SPRUANCE, J.

This action was brought for the recovery of damages for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, on May 5, 1902, alleged to have been occasioned by the negligence of the defendant company.

The action was begun by a writ of foreign attachment, issued May 31, 1904, pursuant to the provisions of the act of March 12 1901 (22 Laws of Del., Ch. 207), which authorized the issuing of writs of foreign attachment in actions ex delicto.

Under said writ certain personal property of the defendant was attached.

Subsequently the defendant, having entered security, the attachment was dissolved and the defendant was admitted to defend the action, which thereafter proceeded as if it had been commenced by summons.

The plaintiff's declaration, containing five counts, alleged, in substance, that the defendant, a corporation of the State of New Jersey, gave an exhibition in the town of Dover in this State, on May 5, 1902, which the plaintiff attended, and that she was then and there injured by the falling of certain seats which had been negligently erected by the defendant for the use and occupation of the persons attending said exhibition.

The fourth and fifth pleas of the defendant are to the effect that the plaintiff's cause of action did not accrue within one year next before the commencement of her suit.

The plaintiff's replications to said pleas alleged, in substance, that the defendant was a corporation foreign to this State, and as such had not filed any certificate in the proper office or offices, designating the name and residence of some person or agent within this State upon whom service of process might be made; and had never filed in the office of the Secretary of State a certified copy of its charter and the name or names of its authorized agent or agents in this State; that the defendant on the day when said cause of action accrued was the owner of certain personal property within this State, and that immediately thereafter it removed all its personal property without this State, and thereafter owned no property within this State until May 31, 1904, when it brought into this State certain of its personal property, which was then seized under said writ of foreign attachment.

That the plaintiff's action was brought within one year after the time when the defendant first owned within this State any property after the accruing of said cause of action.

To these replications the defendant entered a general demurrer.

The Court below sustained the said demurrer, and (the plaintiff having declined to take a judgment of respondeat ouster) final judgment was entered in favor of the defendant.

The only question material for our consideration is whether the said action was or was not barred by the statute of limitations applicable thereto.

The defendant relies upon the act entitled "An Act in Relation to Pleading and Practice", passed May 28, 1897 (20 Laws of Del., Ch. 594) as a complete bar to this action.

The said act is as follows:

"Section 1. That from and after the passage of this act no action for the recovery of damages upon a claim for alleged person al injuries shall be brought after the expiration of one year from the date upon which it is claimed that such alleged injuries were sustained.

"Section 2. That this act shall be deemed and taken to be a public act."

Chapter 123 of the Revised Code of 1893, under the title of "Limitations of Personal Actions" excepts certain cases from the operation of the limitations prescribed in said chapter, among which are the following:

"Section 14. If at the time when a cause of action accrues against any person, he shall be out of the State, the action may be commenced, within the time herein limited therefor, after such person shall come into the State in such manner that, by reasonable diligence, he may be served with process; and if after a cause of action shall have accrued against any person, he shall depart from and reside out of the State, the time of his absence until he shall have returned into the State in manner aforesaid, shall not be taken as any part of the time limited for the commencement of the action."

It is contended by the plaintiff (a) That the said act of 1897 should be construed in connection with said Chapter 123 of the Code, and that the exceptions contained in the latter should be held to be applicable to the former act; (b) that Chapter 123 of the Code and said act of 1897 are "parts of one homogeneous system, or scheme, or body of laws upon the subject of limitations of actions", and that the exceptions and savings in said chapter, in the absence of express provisions to the contrary, are applicable to all limitations of actions under the laws of this State, and that they are therefore applicable to the said act of 1897; (c) that in passing said act of 1897 the Legislature had in mind only the shortening of the period of limitation in case of actions for personal injuries, and not the exemption of actions of this character from the operation of the exemptions specified in said Chapter 123 of the Code, the general act relating to limitations of personal actions; (d) that this case is within the last clause of said Section 14 of said Chapter 123 viz: that "if after a cause of action shall have accrued against any person, he shall depart from and reside out of the State, the time of his absence until he shall have returned into the State in manner aforesaid, shall not be taken as any part of the time limited for the commencement of the action".

The said act of 1897 contains no saving clause whatever, and no reference to any saving clause in any other statute.

It does not purport to be an amendment or supplement to said Chapter 123 or to any other statute. Upon its face it has no relation to said chapter or to any other statute. It is a special statute limiting the bringing of actions for causes therein designated to one year after the cause of action accrued.

We are asked, in construing said act, to read into it, and make a part of it certain exceptions contained in another statute.

The language of said act is plain and needs no construction to ascertain its meaning.

The law on this subject is well stated in Chauncey vs. Dyke, 119 F. 1, 16: "Construction and interpretation have no place or office where the terms of a statute are clear and certain and its meaning is plain. When its language is unambiguous, and its meaning evident, it must be held to mean what it plainly expresses, and no room is left for construction. In such a case argument from the reason spirit, or purpose of the legislation, from the mischief it was intended to remedy, from history or analogy for the purpose of searching out and justifying the interpolation into the statute of...