Court Opinion

ID: 9865076
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:22:47.392033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:06.029175
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Butler,
concurring.
For the following reasons, I concur in the affirmance of the judgment:
Three sections of our Compiled Laws should be considered. Section 6407 provides that where a cause of action has arisen in another state or territory or in a foreign country, and the action is barred there by reason of the lapse of time, an action thereon cannot be maintained in this state. Under the Nebraska statute, the action was not barred in that state because the defendant’s absence therefrom stayed the running of the Nebraska limitation statute. Hence, section 6407, supra, did not bar the present action. Section 6408, so far as pertinent, provides: “It shall be lawful for any person against whom an action shall be commenced in any court of this state, wherein the cause of action accrued without this state, upon a contract * * * more than six years before the commencement of the action in this state, to plead the same in bar of the action in this state * * As the cause of action accrued without the state of Colorado more than six years before the commencement of the action, suit thereon would be barred were it not for section 6417, which provides: “If, when a cause of action accrues against a person, he is out of the state * * * the period limited for the commencement of the action by any statute of limitations shall not begin to run until he comes *84into the state * * *; and if, after the cause of action accrues, he depart from the state * * * the time of his absence * * * shall not be computed as a part of the period within which the action must be brought.” That section applies, of course, to absence from the state of Colorado, not to absence from another state or from a ■territory or foreign country. If the section were intended to cover the latter situation, it would have said “out of the state, territory or foreign country where the cause of action accrued,” and “depart from such state, territory or foreign country.”
The cause of action accrued in Nebraska June 20,1922. The defendant came to Colorado from that state on August 1, 1922, and remained until some time in January, 1926, and then went to Florida. He remained there until March, 1926, and then went to Oklahoma. He returned to Colorado on March 30, 1931, and remained here. The suit was commenced in this state on July 29, 1932. Since August 1, 1922, the date when the six-year period prescribed by our statute of limitation began to run, the defendant' was in this state a total period of four years and nine months prior to the commencement of this suit and was out of the state the rest of the time. It is obvious, therefore, that the cause of action was not barred by section 6408, supra.