Shelton Electric Co. v. Victor Talking Mach. Co.

• Decision Date: 04 January 1922
• Citation: 277 F. 433
• Parties: SHELTON ELECTRIC CO. v. VICTOR TALKING MACH. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

277 F. 433

SHELTON ELECTRIC CO. v. VICTOR TALKING MACH. CO.

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

January 4, 1922

Frank E. Williamson, of Jersey City, N.J. (Arthur C. Fraser, of New York City, and Edgar W. Hunt, of Trenton, N.J., of counsel) for plaintiff.

Louis B. Le Duc, of Camden, N.J. (George W. Schurman, of New York City, John D. Myers, of Camden, N.J., and Allen S. Hubbard of New York City, of counsel), for defendant.

BODINE District Judge.

The present action is brought to recover damages by reason of an alleged unlawful restraint of trade. The complaint contains two counts. The first charges that certain specific acts have been done 'contrary to and in contravention of the anti-trust laws of the United States,' and the concluding clause demands treble damages in addition to the attorneys' fees and costs, 'as authorized by law in such case made and provided.'

The second count contains no reference to the anti-trust laws of the United States or to the provisions of the laws of the United States. As to the first count, the defendant has interposed the bar of the statute of limitations as contained in section 21 of the Compiled Statutes of New Jersey 1910 pp. 3170, 3171, which, so far as pertinent, is as follows:

' * * * All actions on informations which shall be brought or exhibited for any forfeiture or cause upon any statute made or to be made, the benefit and suit whereof is or shall be limited or given to the party aggrieved, shall be brought or exhibited within the space of two years, next after the offense committed or to be committed, or cause of action accrued and not after'

-- the contention being that this statute operates so as to bar actions, both penal and nonpenal, for any cause upon any statute.

The statute in question in its present form is to be found in section 15 of the Engrossed Statutes of 1799. The title of the act was 'An act for the limitation of actions. ' The act is first printed in the Session Laws for the year 1798-99, pp. 456 and 459. Opposite the portion of the statute in question appears this marginal note, 'Actions for forfeiture to the party aggrieved limited to two years. ' In the Patterson Compilation of 1800 (page 354) the act appears with marginal notes merely at the side of the first part of the section as follows. 'Within what time actions or information on penal statutes shall be brought or exhibited.'

The marginal notes add nothing to the construction of the act because not contained in the act, as engrossed, and undoubtedly, added as is the present practice, by the person preparing the laws for printing as an aid to the bar and in the preparation of the index.

The portion of the statute cited seems not to have met with judicial construction, although in Boswell v. Robinson, 33 N.J.Law, 273, and in McLaren v. McVicar, 41 N.J.Law, 271, the earlier portions of the section were considered by the courts.

Mr. Chief Justice Beasley, in Cowenhoven v. Board of Freeholders, 44 N.J.Law, 232, held that a common pleas judge, seeking to recover fees allowed him by statute, was not barred by the six years' limitation. In Jersey City v. Sackett, 44 N.J.Law, 428, the same justice, sitting in the Court of Errors and Appeals, affirmed the same doctrine with a unanimous court, holding that a suit for damages awarded under a statute for the laying out of a public street was not barred by the six-year statute of limitations. The action was on a statute, and would certainly have been barred by the two-year statute of limitations, if the construction contended for by the defendant in this case had been interposed at that time. See, also, McFarlan v. Morris Canal & Banking Co., 44 N.J.Law, 471; Outwater v. City of Passaic, 51 N.J. Law, 345, 18 A. 164. From these decisions, it is more than apparent that neither the bench, nor the eminent lawyers of this state engaged in these cases, recognized the two years' limitation as barring possible recovery on a statutory action, where the damages to be recovered were conferred upon a private individual as compensation for the injury which he had sustained.

Prior to the act of 1799, the Provinces of New Jersey had enacted the then existing English statutes of limitation (Session Laws 1727-28, p. 25). The entire act (Session Laws 1798-99 p. 456) shows its comprehensive extent. Actions of every kind and nature are subjected to periods of limitation--actions of debt, actions on the case, actions on bonds, and every other form of action are dealt with. In section 15, now section 21, ...