Nonce v. Richmond & D.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 01 January 1887
• Parties: NONCE v. RICHMOND & D.R. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

33 F. 429

NONCE v. RICHMOND & D.R. CO.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. North Carolina.

October Term, 1887

L. M Scott and W. S. Ball, for plaintiff.

James E. Boyd and Charles Price, for defendant.

Before BOND and DICK, JJ.

ON THE TRIAL.

BOND J., (charging jury.)

If the jury find from the evidence that the plaintiff, being an employe of the defendant company, was injured in the manner alleged in his complaint while he was in the performance of his duty as such employe, by means of the fault or negligence of another employe of the company (whose orders he was bound to obey) engaged in switching off and making up trains, then he is entitled to a verdict for such damages as the jury may find will compensate him for his injuries. But if the jury find from the evidence that the injury to the plaintiff was occasioned by his own carelessness and disregard of the regulations of the company prescribing and regulating his duties, or that this carelessness and disregard of rules contributed to the injury, then he is not entitled, though the jury may find his co-employes were equally careless.

Second Cause of Action. If the jury find from the evidence that the plaintiff was required to remove a faulty coupling pin, (by the yardmaster,) he is not entitled to recover, unless the jury find further that the faulty condition of the pin caused the injury to him, and that the plaintiff did not know of its faultiness, and had not used it before.

The jury in their verdict found the issues in favor of the plaintiff, and assessed damages at $1,500. The defendant's counsel then entered a motion for a new trial and assigned as grounds for the motion: (1) The cause of action accrued in Virginia, and there is a statute of limitation in that state barring any such action, unless brought in one year after the injury; and this action was not brought within two years after the cause of action arose. (2) The verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence. (3) The damages are excessive, being more than a reasonable compensation for the injury sustained. This motion was continued to be heard on argument at Charlotte, at the December term of the court.

ON MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL.

DICK J.

The injury complained of occurred in the state of Virginia, more than two years before the commencement of this action. There is in that state a statute of limitations that contains a provision, in substance, that every action for a personal injury that would not survive upon the death of the party injured 'shall be brought within one year next after the right to bring the same shall have accrued. ' This action is of the nature mentioned in said provision, and the defendant, under a plea of the statute of limitations insisted on the trial that the said Virginia statute was applicable to this cause of action, and bars the remedy of the plaintiff in this court, as more than two years had elapsed from the time of the injury alleged to the commencement of this suit. At the request of the counsel this question of law was reserved for further argument and consideration on a motion for a new trial, if such motion should become necessary. The jury found the issues of fact in favor of the plaintiff, and assessed damages for the injury sustained at $1,500. This reserved question of law was argued at this term before the judges who presided at the trial at Greensboro, and they concurred in opinion that the statute of limitations of Virginia did not apply to this action. As this question was discussed with ability and learning by the counsel of the parties, I deem it proper to file an opinion setting forth some reasons and principles of law upon which the decision of the court was founded.

This action was brought within three years, the period of limitation prescribed by the statute of this state; and such statute is a rule of decision in this court in trials at common law in cases where it applies. Ang. Lim. Sec. 24; Amy v. Dubuque, 98 U.S. 470. Every state that has a well regulated and enlightened system of jurisprudence has enacted wise and salutary statutes of limitation, and has provided convenient forms and modes of procedure and remedy in its courts; and will not in a mere spirit of comity adopt and enforce the laws of other states upon this subject, which laws the courts cannot judicially know except as matters of fact proved by evidence. Hooper v. Moore, 5 Jones, (N.C.) 130; Haws v. Cragie, 4 Jones, (N.C.) 394. All statutes of limitations are arbitrary in their character, and represent the legislative opinion of a state as to the best policy of promoting and securing the welfare of its own citizens by giving repose to society in matters of long-delayed litigation. They are statutes of the forum, and operate alike on persons and things within the local jurisdiction where they are laws. When pleaded by way of defense they apply only to the remedy, and do not controvert the merits of the cause of action. They do not extinguish rights; and in the case of contracts a subsequent promise, if sufficiently definite, will restore the remedy. It was a rule of the common law that a right never dies, and there was no limitation to actions on contracts, and only one as to torts in the maxim actio personalis moritur cum persona. Human experience and the wisdom of the advanced civilization of modern times, give rise to the beneficial policy of statutes of limitation intended to operate as statutes of repose, not by extinguishing rights, but by restricting the remedies of the courts to persons-- diligent in business-- who in the reasonable periods prescribed would seek the enforcement of their rights, and thus settle matters of vexatious controversy and litigation. The several states of the union have enacted statutes limiting remedies in their courts, and when they operate prospectively, and allow remedies that are reasonable and convenient, they are regarded as not impairing the validity and obligations of contracts or unjustly disturbing vested rights. A state may in such statutes discriminate against non-resident creditors, provided some convenient and reasonable time is allowed them for bringing their actions in such state. Bacon v. Howard, 20 How. 22. It is the duty of every state to protect, secure, and enforce the natural inherent rights of personal security, personal liberty, and private property of every person residing permanently or temporarily present within its territorial limits, but it can do so in accordance with its own views of expediency, propriety, and justice in legislating for its own citizens. Statutes of limitations are universally regarded as peculiar and local laws, operating exclusively within the bounds of the state that enacts them. Haws v. Cragie, 4 Jones, (N.C.) 394.

There are some rights and some injuries strictly local, and can be enforced and remedied only in the state in which they subsist or occur. This class of cases includes rights and injuries relating to real property, to penalties and forfeitures, to prosecutions for crime, to proceedings in rem, to claims against executors and administrators, and other local public officers, and to rights that do not exist at the common law, but are created by statute and expressly limited in their enforcement to the courts of the sovereignty conferring such new rights. In these cases, if an action is not instituted within the period prescribed by the local statutes of limitation, lapse of time not only operates as a bar to the remedy, but as an extinguishment of the right of the negligent claimant, as he can seek no other forum for redress. In most, if not in all, of the states there are statutes operating in the nature of prescriptions, which provide that when property is openly and adversely held for a specified period of time, the holder shall acquire a title by such adverse possession, and such title will be regarded valid everywhere against the original owner, where he has had reasonable opportunity of asserting his rights and has failed so to do. There is a clear distinction between statutes giving title by prescription arising from adverse possession, and such as only limit the remedy as to the time of bringing suit. This distinction has been clearly defined and established by many adjudged cases. Townsend v. Jemison, 9 How. 407; Campbell v. Holt, 115 U.S. 620, 6 S.Ct. 209. Parties to contracts may, within the rules of law, make almost any terms they please about performance of the obligation. They may expressly stipulate that an action on such contract shall be brought within a certain period of time,--less than is provided in the local statutes of limitation,-- or the rights of the delinquent party shall be extinguished; and such stipulation, if free from fraud, will bind the parties, and be regarded as valid in courts of law. The essential elements in every contract are the intention and agreement of the parties, and, when clearly ascertained by the reasonable rules of construction, will be carried out in legal proceedings. Riddlesbarger v. Insurance Co., 7 Wall. 386.

We have thus briefly referred to these causes of action that are of a special or local nature, in order to more clearly observe the distinction between local and transitory actions. In the early ages of the common law all actions were local, and all issues of fact were required to be tried and determined by a jury of the vicinage; but, in the course of time, the courts guided and influenced by the dictates of reason, the principles of justice, the circumstances of the nation, and other considerations, motives, and purposes so well expressed by Chief Justice MARSHALL in the case of Livingston v. Jefferson, 11 Myers, Fed.Dec. § 1695, established a distinction between local and transitory actions. 'The distinction taken...