Case ID: nc_6/html/0053-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Comer.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Bridges, jun. v. Lawrence Smith.
    From Northampton.
    The statute of 31st Elizabeth, ch. 5, limiting the time for bringing qni tam actions, is in force in this State.
    This was an action of debt, to recover the penally given by the act of 1741, ch. 11, to restrain the taking of usurious interest upon money loaned. The usury was received on the 15th of May, J80G, and the writ in this case was sued out on the 9th of December, 1807. The Defendant pleaded, among other pleas in bar, the stat. of 31,st Eliz. ch.* 5, limiting the time within which actions qui tarn shall be brought; and the Jury found for the Plaintiff, subject to the opinion of the Court, whether that statute of Elizabeth be in force in this state ? The. question was sent to this Court; and,
   By the Comer.

The staiute of 31st Elizabeth, ch. 5, is in force in this State, and bars the Plaintiff's right of action. 
      
       This case occurred in 1806, and the Court resorted to the statute of Elizabeth, because at that time the General Assembly had passed no general act limiting' the time for bringing penal actions. In 1S08, they passed “ An act to limit penal actions,5’ in which it is declared, “ That all actions and suits to be brought on any penal act of the General Assembly, for the recovery of the penalty therein set forth, shall be brought within three jmars after the cause of such action or suit shall or may have accrued, and not after : Provided, that this act shall not affect the time of bringing suit on any peijal act of the General Assembly, which hath a time limited therein for bringing the same.”