Means v. Harrison

• Citation: 114 Ill. 248,2 N.E. 64
• Parties: MEANS and othersv.HARRISON, EX'r, etc.
• Decision Date: 13 June 1885
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

114 Ill. 248

2 N.E. 64

MEANS and others

v.HARRISON, EX'r, etc.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Filed June 13, 1885.

Error to appellate court. T. J. Layman, for appellants.F. M. Youngblood, for appellee.

SHELDON, J.

This was an action in assumpsit, brought by Isham Harrison, executor of Barzilla Silkwood, deceased, upon a promissory note made by the defendants and others, on January 29, 1872, to said Silkwood, in his life-time, for $500, payable two years after date, with 10 per cent. interest. The pleas were non assumpsit, and two special pleas. A demurrer was sustained to the two special pleas. The cause was then submitted to the court for trial without a jury. The issue found for the plaintiff, damages assessed at $896.67, and judgment accordingly. The judgment was affirmed by the appellate court for the Fourth district, and an appeal taken by the defendants to this court. The questions presented are as to the sufficiency of the second and third pleas, to which demurrers were sustained.

The second plea was the statute of limitations,-that the cause of action did not accrue within 10 years next before the commencement of the suit. The action was commenced October 15, 1884. The time of limitation of an action on a promissory note when the note in suit was made, on January 29, 1872, was 16 years, under the act of November 5, 1849. By the act approved April 4, 1872, which went in force July 1, 1872, the time of limitation of an action on a promissory note was made 10 years. The act of April 4, 1872, expressly repeals the act of November 5, 1849, with this provision in the repealing section: ‘But this section shall not be construed so as to affect any rights or liabilities, or any causes of action, that may have accrued before this act shall take effect.’ The question is, which act is to govern here,-the act of November 5, 1849, which was in force at the time of the making of the note, or the act of April 4, 1872, which was enacted and went in force after the making of the note, but before the time of payment of the note,-before a cause of action on the note accrued? The saving clause of the act of 1872 extends, not only to causes of action, but ‘any rights or liabilities, or any causes of action,’ which rights have before accrued. The time of payment of the note had not then, at the passage or going into effect of the act of 1872, arrived, and it may be said that a cause of action on the note had not then accrued. But can it be said that there had not accrued any right or liability...