Price v. Hopkin

• Decision Date: 18 May 1865
• Citation: 13 Mich. 318
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Caroline Price v. William Hopkin and another

13 Mich. 318

Caroline Price v. William Hopkin and another

Supreme Court of Michigan

May 18, 1865

May 2 1865; May 3, 1865; May 4, 1865, Heard [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material]

Error to Wayne circuit.

Judgment of the court reversed, and a new trial ordered.

Charles Tryon, Joseph E. Bigelow, and H. C. Knight, for plaintiff in error:

In a comprehensive sense, the term ex post facto law embraces all retrospective laws, or laws governing or controlling past transactions, whether they are of a civil or criminal nature: Sedgwick on Stat. and Const. Law, pp. 499, 500; Calder v. Bull, 3 Dallas 386.

Retrospective laws are not confined to such as are enacted to take effect at a time anterior to their passage, but this term embraces all statutes which, operating only from their passage, affect vested rights and past transactions. Every statute which takes away or impairs vested rights acquired under existing laws, or creates a new obligation, or attaches a new disability in respect to transactions or considerations already past, must be deemed retrospective: The Society, etc., v. Wheeler, 2 Gall. 139; Smith's Com., 291; 1 Kent's Com., p. 455; Dash v. Van Kleeck, 7 J. R., 477.

An act of the legislature is not to be construed to operate retrospectively, so as to take away a vested right: People v. Tibbets, 4 Cow. 384; Dash v. Van Kleeck, 7 J. R., 477.

An ex post facto law, in the strict technical sense of the term, is usually understood to apply to criminal cases; yet laws impairing previously acquired civil rights are equally within the reason of that prohibition, and equally to be condemned: Opinion of Ch. J. Kent in Dash v. Van Kleeck, 7 J. R., 505.

Legislative acts creating new exceptions or defenses, or modifying previous remedies, should be so construed as not to affect rights of action which have attached and become vested under the original law, and exist at the time of the repealing statute: Sedgwick on Stat. and Const. Law, 135, 660; Bedford v. Shilling, 4 S. & R., 401; Butler v. Palmer, 1 Hill 324.

If a statute of limitations is retrospective, a reasonable time must be given to commence suits: Pritchard v. Spencer, 2 Ind. 486; Sedgwick on Stat. and Const. Law, 659, 660, 690 and 691; Call v. Hagger, 8 Mass. 429; Holyoke v. Haskins, 5 Pick. 201; Smith v. Morrison, 22 Pick. 431; Holcombe v. Tracy, 2 Minn. 244.

If the statute in question is to have a retrospective operation, then, in all those cases where the time provided in it had already run out when it took effect and became a law, it had the effect to transfer the property from the actual owner, without his consent, to the party in possession, and is in violation of section 32 of article vi, of the constitution of the state of Michigan, and void: Taylor v. Porter, 4 Hill 145; Wynehamer v. The People, 13 N. Y., 392; Norman v. Heist, 5 Watts & Sergt., 171; Hoke v. Henderson, 4 Dev. 15; 2 Kent's Com., 13; Jones v. Perry, 10 Yerger 59; Embury v. Conner, 3 N. Y., 511; Westervelt v. Gregg, 12 N. Y., 202; Greene v. Briggs, 1 Curtis 311; Hibbard v. The People, 4 Mich. 129, Bowman v. Middleton, 1 Bay 252; Marray's Lessees v. Hoboken L. & I. Co., 18 How. 276; Vanzant v. Waddel, 2 Yerger 260; State Bank v. Cooper, 2 Yerger 599; Bronson v. Kinzie, 1 How. 311; McCracken v. Hayward, 2 How. 608; Arrowsmith v. Burlingim, 4 McLean 494; Reed v. Wright, 2 Greene 22; Sedgwick on Stat. and Const. Law, 537, et seq., and cases cited; Cargill v. Power, 1 Mich. 369.

Ward & Palmer, and G. V. N. Lothrop, for defendant in error:

Statutes of limitation are too beneficial in their effects, and are too thoroughly engrafted into the policy of the country to be rooted out or lightly overturned, and they will be held valid unless the constitutional restriction can be pointed out which they violate: Sears v. Cottrell, 5 Mich. 251; People v. Gallagher, 4 Mich. 244.

This statute carefully provides ample time for every person to protect his interests, and is not obnoxious to the charge of being unreasonable or arbitrary in any of its provisions: Smith v. Morrison, 22 Pick. 430; Holcombe v. Tracy, 2 Minn. 241; Pierce v. Tobey, 5 Met. 169.

That the law is retroactive in its operation, and acts, to some extent, on vested rights, does not make it invalid. Fanciful objections to such laws have sometimes been urged, on the ground that they might be made to work great injustice and oppression; but the general course of legislation, and the prevailing sense of the people, in nearly every state, have decided otherwise, and overwhelmingly sanctioned and approved them: 1 Kent's Com., 409; Satterlee v. Matthewson, 2 Pet. 380; Bennett v. Boggs, 1 Bald. 74; Evans v. Montgomery, 4 Watts & Serg., 218; Griffin v. McKenzie, 7 Geo. 163; Hawkins v. Barney's Lessees, 5 Pet. 457; Wilson v. Hardesty, 1 Md. Ch. Decis., 66; Watson v. Mercer, 8 Pet. 88; Beal v. Nason, 14 Me. 344; Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 420; James v. Stall, 9 Barb. 482; 6 Iowa 106.

In all the states, laws affecting the remedy to enforce contracts even--such as abolishing imprisonment for debt, exempting personal property to a limited amount, and homesteads of considerable value, from levy of execution to enforce the payment of debts, whether contracted before or after the passage of the law--have been enacted, and their validity contested, but always upheld: Bronson v. Newberry, 2 Doug. Mich., 38; Rockwell v. Hubbell's Adm'rs, 2 Doug. Mich., 197; Morse v. Goold, 11 N. Y., 281.

The only restriction suggested in the adjudged cases, to be imposed upon limitation laws, is that they should not annihilate the remedy on contracts without a reasonable time having been granted to enforce them, it being admitted that what is such reasonable time is a question for the legislature, and not the courts, to decide: Hawkins v. Barney's Lessees, 5 Pet. 456; Beal v. Nason, 14 Me. 444; Jackson v. Lamphire, 3 Pet. 280.

Cooley, J. Christiancy and Campbell JJ. concurred. Martin Ch. J. dissented.

OPINION

Cooley J.:

The plaintiff in this suit brings ejectment, claiming to recover, as grantee of Mary Robinson, a lot in the city of Detroit, which was conveyed to said Mary Robinson, then the wife of John Robinson, by the governor and judges of the territory of Michigan, by deed bearing date March 18, 1809. The defendants claimed, under John R. Williams, and introduced evidence tending to show that said Williams had possessed and occupied the premises, adversely to the plaintiff and her grantor, for about twenty years before the suit was commenced. There was other evidence in the case to show that said Mary and John Robinson resided in the territory of Michigan at the date of said deed to her, but that they removed to Canada soon after, and she continued to reside there for some twelve years after his death, when she removed to Detroit. Her deed to the plaintiff bears date June 9, 1863.

The defendants offered in evidence a deed from Mary Robinson to John R. Williams, dated June 19, 1816, purporting to be executed and acknowledged at Detroit, on the day of its date, and to convey, with covenants of warranty, the premises in question. John Robinson did not join in this deed, nor is there anything on the face of it to indicate that the grantor is a married woman. The plaintiff objected to the introduction of this deed in evidence, unless it was first shown that the husband was dead, or that the grantor was in some way legally absolved from the marriage relation at the time of its date, but the court overruled the objection.

Under the foregoing evidence it was insisted, on behalf of the defendants, that act No. 227, of 1863 (Laws of 1863, p. 388), to amend certain sections of the Compiled Laws, touching the limitation of actions relating to real property, was applicable to this case, and had the effect to bar the action. The court sustained this position, and the defendants had judgment.

Before the passage of the act of 1863, Mary Robinson was entitled by the existing statutes to bring her action within twenty years from the time when the right accrued, excluding therefrom the period of her residence in Canada. She seems to have resided in Michigan for about four years only before this suit was commenced. The act of 1863 provides that, after the thirty-first day of December, 1863, "no person shall bring or maintain any action for the recovery of any lands, or the possession thereof, or make any entry thereupon unless such action is commenced, or entry made, within the time herein limited therefor, after the right to make such entry, or to bring such action, shall have first accrued to the plaintiff, or to some person through whom he claims." The time limited for cases like the one before us is fifteen years, and the act makes no exception in favor of parties resident within the British provinces of North America, though it does in favor of women under coverture. The last section provides that "when any right of action or of entry shall have accrued before the time when these amendments shall take effect as law, the same shall be governed by this chapter as amended: Provided, that no entry shall be made, or action maintained, in any case where such right of action shall already have become barred by any law now or hereafter in force in the territory of the state of Michigan; and provided further, that all actions commenced and pending when these amendments shall become a law, shall not be affected thereby, but shall be governed by the law in force, touching the same at the time of the commencement thereof."

This act was passed March 20, 1863, and was ordered to take effect January 1, 1864, and the construction placed upon it by the court below made it bar the right of action in the present case the moment it took effect--more...