Court Opinion

ID: 9808414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:37:24.727709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:09.528289
License: Public Domain

OiARK, J".
(dissenting). This is an action for $7,836, alleged to be due for arrearages of alimony upon a judgment rendered in an Illinois court, November, 1880, decreeing an absolute divorce, and the payment of $154 alimony annually, and $300 annually for support of the children awarded to the custody of the wife. The laws of this State do not recognize alimony after the grant of an absolute divorce, and, in the nature of things, the children, or most of them, must long since have become of age. Besides, by the universal law, that part of the judgment which is alimony and manitenance of the children, is subject to' modification by the court at any time, and is therefore interlocutory, and not a fin'al judgment, upon which alone an action can be brought in the court of another State. In a very recent and well-considered opinion (Lynde v. Lynde, 162 N. Y., 405), the Court of Appeals of New York held, affirming 41 App. Div., 280, 58 N. Y., Supp. 567, that while a decree for alimony in a lump sum, or past alimony, is a final judgment, upon which an action can be brought in the courts of another State, a judgment for payment of alimony in the future is not such a judgment that action can be maintained upon it in the courts of another State. The reasoning and the authorities cited in this case (162 N. Y., 418-420, and cases there cited) leave nothing to *199be added. For these reasons, it is clear that tbe complaint does not state facts to constitute a cause of action.
Without citing further authorities upon propositions which would seem self-evident, the Judge below followed the plain, unambiguous language of the statute, when he held the cause of action barred by the statute of limitations. Code, sec. 152 (1) bars an action after ten years “upon a judgment or decree of any court of this State, or of the United States, or of any State or territory thereof, from the date of the rendition of the said judgment or decree.” The date of the rendition of the judgment in Illinois sued on is November 16, 1880, and the date of the summons in this action is March 27, 1899. This leaves no room for argument. There is no exception in the statute as to judgments upon which executions are to issue at stated periods thereafter, nor as to decrees in divorce, or any other hinds of decrees. The statute may be defective, in that it did not except some judgments from this limitation, or did not provide that, as to judgments framed like this, the statute should not run from the rendition of the judgment, but from the falling due of each payment. But, as this Court once justly observed, through Judge Daniel, “We can not be wiser than the law.” The court has no legislative authority. It can not put into the statute words which the law-m!aking power did not put there, nor amend it because we may think the General Assembly might have written the law differently if its attention had been called to this case, as to which our opinion might be at fault. The language of the statute bars actions on all judgments after the lapse of ten years “from the date of the rendition of said judgment,” not from the date of its performance. The plaintiff could have sued on the judgment within ten years from its rendition, November 16, 1880, ánd, not having chosen to do so, she is barred by the statute from bringing this action, which is upon that judg-*200meat. A State statute of limitations is a bar to an action in. a State court upon a judgment rendered in a court of tlie United States, or of another State. McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet.,313; 13 Am. and Eng. Enc. Law (2d Ed.),1033, note 3. It is the statute of limitations of the State in wbicli the action is brought which governs, and not that of the State in which the judgment sued on is rendered. McElmoyle v. Cohen, supra; 13 Am. and Eng. Enc. Law (2d Ed.), 1033, note 5; Ambler v. Whipple, 139 Ill., 311. The North Carolina statute contains no exception. It is too plain to be misunderstood by any one, and the Court has no power to correct or amend it, as if the act of the General Assembly were the action of' a subordinate court.
Douglas, J., concurs in the dissenting opinion.