Stine v. Bennett

• Decision Date: 01 January 1868
• Citation: 13 Minn. 138
• Parties: DANIEL STINE and others v. D. C. BENNETT.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 138

13 Minn. 138

DANIEL STINE and othersv.

D. C. BENNETT.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Appeal by plaintiffs from a judgment of the district court, Olmsted county.

Jones & Butler, for appellants.

Stearns & Start, for respondent.

MCMILLAN, J.

The plaintiffs allege, in due form, for a cause of action, a judgment in their favor, recovered in the circuit court of Monroe county, Wisconsin, on the twentieth day of October, 1858, against the defendant and one Porter Aylesworth, in an action upon two joint and several promissory notes made by the defendant and said Aylesworth, and delivered to the plaintiff.

The answer of the defendant, after putting in issue the record of the judgment, for a second defence sets up the statute of limitations. The action was tried before the court without the intervention of a jury, whereupon the judge found as facts: (1) The recovery of the judgment on the twentieth day of October, 1858, in the circuit court of Monroe county, Wisconsin, its record in said court, and that no part of it is paid. (2) That the judgment was not made and recovered, and that the cause of action did not accrue within six years next before the thirty-first day of July, 1866; and this action was commenced since that time, to-wit, on the twenty-fourth of September, A. D. 1866, as alleged in the answer; and as a conclusion of law that the action was barred by the statute of limitations in this state. It appears by a stipulation contained in the paper book "that on the trial the plaintiffs offered to prove, and it was agreed by the parties, that the county auditor would testify that the session laws of this state for the year 1865 were received by the county auditor of said county on the first day of August, 1865, by express, from the secretary of state; and that the time usually occupied in transmitting packages by express from St. Paul to the county seat of said county was four days — to which the defendant objected as irrelevant — that said facts should be considered in evidence on the trial of this action before said court, subject to the decision of the court on such objection." We regard the objection to the evidence as well taken. The distribution of the Session Laws did not affect the validity or operation of the law. Even conceding for the purposes of this case that the publication of the law was necessary before it could be in force, the publication in a newspaper, under sections 4 and 5 of chapter 3 of the Compiled Statutes, was all that was necessary, and the presumption is that the law was published immediately in pursuance of these sections.

It does not appear distinctly whether the court passed upon the objection to this testimony or not; but as the testimony was in the case, and the point is presented, we deem it proper to determine it here.

We pass now to the questions arising upon the findings of the court.

Prior to the act of 1865 the Compiled Statutes limited the time within which an action could be brought upon a judgment or decree of a court of the United States, or of any state or territory of the United States, to 10 years. Comp. St. c. 60, §§ 3, 5, p. 532. By an act of the legislature of 1865, section 5 of chapter 60 of the Compiled Statutes, cited ante, was amended so as to embrace within its provisions only judgments or decrees of courts of the United States, and of the state of Minnesota, and subdivision 1 of section 6 was amended so as to embrace judgments or decrees of any court of any state or territory of the United States, except those mentioned in section 5, (Laws 1865, c. 20, p. 57,) thus making six years the limitation of actions on judgments or decrees of any state court, except those of our own state. Section 3 of the act of 1865 is as follows: "This act shall take effect and be in force on and after the first day of July next." The act was approved February 16, 1865.

The important questions are: (1) Is the act of 1865 retrospective in its operation? (2) If so, is it constitutional?

We think this act was intended to apply to causes of action existing and prospective. We are led to this conclusion because the language in its fair acceptation may reasonably be applied to causes of action of both kinds, and because the operation of the act is postponed from the sixteenth of February, 1865, to the first day of July then next. No reason is apparent why the law-makers should depart from the ordinary course of legislative action by postponing the operation of the law, except it be that parties interested might have notice of the passage of the law, and proceed to exercise their existing rights before its operation should prevent them from doing so. Burwell v. Tullis, 12 Minn. 578, (Gil. 486.) A further reason for this position, and one we think entitled to great weight, is that section 5 of chapter 60 of the Compiled Statutes, was the only section which at the time of the passage of the act in question prescribed a limitation to actions upon judgments of courts of other states, and the section as amended does not embrace such judgments. If, therefore, such judgments, existing at the time of the passage of the act of 1865, are not embraced in section 2 of that act, and actions therein limited to six years they are without any limitation, and actions...