Rotchford v. Union R. Co.
| Decision Date | 18 March 1903 |
| Citation | 54 A. 932,25 R.I. 70 |
| Parties | ROTCHFORD v. UNION R. CO. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Action on the case for personal injury by N. Mary Rotchford against the Union Railroad Company. To a plea of limitations, plaintiff demurs. Demurrer sustained.
Argued before STINESS, C. J., and TILLINGHAST and BLODGETT, JJ.
Thomas F. Farnell, for plaintiff.
David S. Baker, for defendant.
The single question presented by the plaintiff's demurrer is whether the provisions of chapter 970, p. 49, Pub. Laws, § 1, can be pleaded in bar of causes of action existing before July 1, 1902. The act in question was passed on April 3, 1902, to take effect on July 1, 1902, and so much of the same as is material to this case is contained in these words: "Actions of the case for injuries to the person shall be commenced and sued within two years next after the cause of action shall accrue, and not after." This chapter takes the place of chapter 234 of the General Laws of 1896, which allowed an action of this nature to be "commenced and sued within six years next after the cause of action shall accrue and not after." The plaintiff brought her action on November 28, 1902, alleging in her declaration an injury and cause of action on August 12, 1900. If, therefore, the statute is retrospective in its operation, the action must fail; and it follows that the action is seasonably brought if the statute applies only to causes of action accruing after July 1, 1902.
The defendant contends that the statute retroacts, and that the action is barred, claiming that the period between its enactment on April 3, 1902, and the time when it took effect, viz., July 1, 1902, is to be computed as a period within which any cause of action existing prior to the latter date, and not then barred by the lapse of 6 years, might be sued. If the construction for which he contends be the correct construction, then a cause of action arising on, say, July 15, 1896, and which would not otherwise be barred until July 15, 1902, must be sued before July 1, 1902, or 14 days earlier than the law then in force required, in order to be maintained. If action thereon is brought after July 1. 1902, and before July 15, 1902, the 2-year limitation of the present statute would apply, and the plaintiff would find that his right of action had expired on July 15, 1898, or nearly 4 years before. Again, if the defendant's construction be correct, a cause of action accruing just before the passage of this act on April 3, 1902, viz., on April 1, 1902, and which then might have been sued at any time within 6 years thereafter, viz., before April 1, 1908, must by this act be sued in any event before April 1, 1904; thus depriving a plaintiff of 4 years' time in which to sue on an existing cause of action.
It is unquestioned that the Legislature may shorten periods of limitation, and may make such statutes retrospective by express provision; but a construction which gives 5 years and 11 1/2 months as a period of limitation in a certain cause of action existing when it takes effect, and only 2 years to another cause of action of the same nature, is not to be favored, especially when the very object of...
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Westfall v. Whittaker, Clark & Daniels
...or otherwise, as the intention of the legislature is to be gathered from their language...." Id. at 563-64. In Rotchford v. Union Railroad Co., 25 R.I. 70, 54 A. 932 (1903), the court followed what it acknowledged to be "a familiar rule of construction that statutes of limitations are held ......
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TEAMSTERS L. 251, HEALTH S. & INS. F. v. LOCAL 251
...the language with which we have compared it can operate on past as well as future actions. Id. 320 A.2d at 99 (citing Rotchford v. Union R.R., 54 A. 932 (R.I. 1903)). In addition, the Court noted the "familiar rule of construction that statutes of limitations are held to be prospective only......
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Twomey v. Carlton House of Providence, Inc.
...effective, whereas the language with which we have compared it can operate upon past as well as future actions. Rotchford v. Union R.R., 25 R.I. 70, 54 A. 932 (1903). As a further basis for holding that the act referred only to such actions as might thereafter accrue, we follow the court in......
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Hester v. Timothy
...or necessary implication they shall be held to express a legislative intent that retroactive effect is to be given them. Rotchford v. Union R.R., 25 R.I. 70, 54 A. 932. Here, the Legislature expressly declared that the new amendment, though passed in the Spring of 1969, would not take effec......