Court Opinion

ID: 9763505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:48:03.473804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:45.171251
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Chief Justice Jones:
The rationale of the decision in Peterson v. Ferry Co., 190 Pa. 364, 42 A. 955, is equally applicable to the question presented by the present case. The fact that Peterson v. Ferry Co. was concerned with the delayed suit of a person who had been under the disability of non-age, whereas the instant case involves á belated suit in behálf of a formerly non compos mentis person, points a factual difference which is of no presently pertinent distinguishing legal significance.
The statute of limitations of March 27, 1713, 1 Sm. L. 76, which applied to actions of trespass for injuries to the person, contained a proviso “That if any person or persons, who is or shall be entitled to any such action of trespass, . . . shall be, within the age of twenty-one years, feme covert, non compos mentis, imprisoned, or beyond sea, that then such person or per*151sons shall be at liberty to bring the same actions, so as they take the same within such times as are hereby before limited, after their coming to or being, of full agej, disco verture, of sound memory, at large, or.returning into this province, as other persons.”
The legislature, by Section 2 of the Act of June 24, 1895, P. L. 236, prescribed that “Every suit hereafter brought to recover damages for injury wrongfully done to the person, in case where the injury does not result in death, must be brought within two. years from the time when the injury was done and not after-wards; in cases where the injury does result in death the limitation of action shall remain as now established by law” and made no provision that persons under disability should be excluded from the limitation.
In the Peterson case, supra, Mr. Justice Mitchell, speaking for a unanimous court, declared, with respect to the later statute, “Its terms are general, and make no exceptions in favor of persons under disability. . . ., ‘A saving from the operation of statutes for disabilities must be expressed or it does not .exist Warfield v. Fox, 53 Pa. 382. ‘There is no. limitation in the act which excludes persons under disabilL ties. “Any person” means every person. . . .’ Williams v. Ivory, 173 Pa. 536.” The conclusion thus arrived at obviously resulted from the fact that the Act ,of 1895 had not carried forward the above-quoted exclusionary clause of the . Act of 1713. And, that was the provision which had theretofore operated to exclude from the operation, of the statute of limitations not only minors but non compos mentis persons as well.
No matter how much we may differ with the reasoning of the decision in the Peterson case, when .this court thereby construed the Act of 1895 as evidencing a legislative, intent not to exclude thenceforth from the operation of the statute’s limitation persons under dis*152ability, the construction became the definite and legally conclusive meaning of the act just as effectively as if the legislature had indisputably so expressed itself in plain and unmistakable terms: Salvation Army Case, 349 Pa. 105, 110, 36 A. 2d 479; Lerch’s Estate, 309 Pa. 23, 28, 159 A. 868. For us now to interpret the Act of 1895 to any other end would constitute a palpable example of judicial legislation for which there is not the slightest justification since the legislature can at any time, that it sees fit, re-establish an exclusion of persons under disability from the operation of the statute of limitations. Consequently I concur in the judgment of the court.