Court Opinion

ID: 9628384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:18:30.018135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:29.882529
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
The court declares that personal actions1 by governmental entities subordinate to the state, who sue in a “sovereign capacity to protect vested public rights,” are unaffected by statutory limitations. I cannot accede to today’s departure from the general rule of the common-law which holds that, absent contrary legislation, only the state is protected from the effect of legislative time bars on personal actions. Moreover, in my view no city can ever sue in a “sovereign capacity” because it lacks that status.
Mindful of Oklahoma’s strong public policy disfavoring litigation of stale claims, I would hold that, unless subordinate governmental entities be expressly excluded by statute, time to bring a personal action does run against them.
I
THE ENGLISH ANTECEDENTS OF AND THE GENERAL COMMON-LAW RULE FOR TESTING THE APPLICABILITY OF STATUTORY LIMITATIONS TO PUBLIC BODIES
The literal translation of the ancient maxim, nullum tempus occurrit regi, is that time does not run against the King. Before Parliament’s rise to supremacy at the end of the XVIIth century, the phrase may have meant that legislative time bars could not affect the Crown. Today, the doctrine serves as but a rule of statutory construction2 [hereafter called the nul-*138lum tempus rule or the Rule] for testing the applicability to public entities of legislatively enacted limitations. By the English common law, time ran against all governmental entities inferior to the sovereign.3 As now adopted by the mainstream of American states, the nullum tempus rule may be formulated thusly:
The state is not subject to statutory limitations when acting in its sovereign capacity unless it be expressly included by the terms of the applicable enactment;4 on the other hand, time does generally run against inferior (non-sovereign) public bodies unless they are either explicitly excluded from the statute or are protecting their interests in real property held for the public’s benefit.5
Political subdivisions — counties, cities, school districts, etc. — possess none of the attributes of true sovereignty6 and never have been considered as governmental entities falling into that category.7 Absent explicit legislative expression to the contrary, freedom from the effect of statutory limitations that govern personal actions8 *139should be confined to the sovereign state.9
II
OKLAHOMA’S COMMITMENT TO THE COMMON-LAW RULE FOR TESTING THE APPLICABILITY OF STATUTORY LIMITATIONS TO PUBLIC ENTITIES
This court has refused to sanction a political subdivision’s suit brought for a money judgment after the limitation period had expired.10 When the claim is by one public body against another, Oklahoma clearly requires a governmental entity’s compliance with statutory limitations.11 While I have found no published opinion by this court where a personal action by some subordinate governmental entity against a private party was allowed to be brought after the applicable limitation period had expired,12 our extant case law is replete with loose language that might lead one to conclude that the nullum tempus rule extends to personal actions by political subdivisions.13 In my view, the ascription of sovereign status to a governmental entity other than the state is a pernicious, aberrational norm that should today be excised from the body of our jurisprudence.
In real14 as distinguished from personal actions, the court has permitted the Rule to *140be invoked by a town15 and by a county board16 to protect land interests held for the public’s benefit. When a squatter lays claim against a municipality, Oklahoma law is clear: absent contrary legislation, title to land held by a municipal corporation for the public’s benefit cannot be acquired by adverse possession.17 In short, time does not run in favor of an adverse claimant seeking to acquire a municipal interest in land by lapse of time. I would today leave undisturbed this extant jurisprudence which serves merely to protect the public’s title to real property.18
Not even the sovereign's own privilege from the effect of time lapse is without bounds. When both the right and the remedy are affected by a statutory time bar,19 the state’s protection from passage of time has been rejected. The state is held bound by the time limits in the nonclaim statute,20 58 O.S.1981 § 333.21 The marketable title act’s provisions, 16 O.S.1981 §§ 72 and 73,22 *141which extinguish the remedy as well as the right, are viewed as expressly including municipalities.23
Today’s opinion casts a strained gloss on the nullum tempus rule and creates a dangerous precedent. At common law, when the remedy is lost by the passage of time, the remaining severed right, though unenforceable, continues to exist indefinitely.24 Today, at least for personal actions, our case law gives inferior (non-sovereign) public bodies an eternal remedy to go with their immortal common-law claim,25 There is no historical, logical or public policy warrant for this aberrational jurisprudence. Many other jurisdictions still adhere to the traditional English version of the nullum tempus doctrine of the common law.26
III
PUBLIC POLICY STRONGLY MILITATES AGAINST TODAY’S EXTENSION OF THE COMMON-LAW RULE FOR TESTING THE APPLICABILITY OF STATUTORY LIMITATIONS TO PUBLIC ENTITIES
The public policy that underlies our statutory limitations strongly militates against prosecution of stale claims. Time bars for bringing an action prevent fraudulent as well as forgotten demands from being sprung upon parties or their representatives . after lengthy passage of time.27 Without limitations “there would be injected into almost every transaction ... an element of uncertainty that would noticeably interfere with the stability of ordinary *142business affairs.”28 Statutes of limitation exist to encourage a speedy pursuit of one’s remedy. They prevent innocent parties from being harassed and required to defend old disputes in the face of lost or forgotten evidence and dead or missing witnesses.29 The court’s holding today contravenes the very purpose of limitations by allowing a select class of plaintiffs to prosecute personal actions without regard to statutory time bars.
IV
EVEN IF THE NULLUM TEMPUS RULE WERE TO BE EXTENDED SO AS TO FREE NON-SOVEREIGN ENTITIES FROM LEGISLATIVELY ENACTED TIME BARS ON PERSONAL ACTIONS BROUGHT BY THEM TO ASSERT A (NON-SOVEREIGN) “PUBLIC RIGHT,” THE CITY CANNOT IN THIS CASE ESCAPE STATUTORY LIMITATIONS BECAUSE IT SEEKS NO REDRESS FOR A BREACHED DUTY OWED TO IT AS AN ORGAN OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
Real property interests which political subdivisions are allowed to protect unimpeded by statutory time bars are properly labeled as “public” rights. Assuming that some other kind of non-sovereign “public” right does fall under this rubric and hence its protection may as well be unaffected by limitations, a city's contract or tort claim, like that in litigation here, should not be characterized as one in the same class. This is so because it implicates merely “private” rights which do not affect the citizens of this state as a whole.30 A non-sovereign’s suit to recover either on a promise-based obligation or for a contract’s “tor-tious breach” rests on the obligor’s consensually assumed duty rather than on one exacted through the exercise of governmental authority. In short, a political subdivision’s personal action for recovery of money — not owed it qua a public body obligee31 — implicates only “private” rights and may hence be barred by statutory time limits.32
Legislation of other states, which requires that statutory limitations be applied to the state and its political subdivisions, most often makes no distinction between “governmental”(public) or “proprietary” (private) rights.33 Although in Oklahoma *143the govemmental/proprietary dichotomy has been renounced by the legislature in both the tort-immunity34 and land-title35 contexts, the court today casts the ex contractu/ex delicto claim in controversy in the form of one which implicates “public” rights for the purpose of allowing subordinate governmental entities to benefit from the nullum tempus rule.
I stood opposed to fashioning the governmental/proprietary dichotomy for application to the state’s tort liability.36 Today, I express like hostility to the distinction’s use for freeing non-sovereign governmental bodies from the effect of statutory limitations.
CONCLUSION
Today’s pronouncement doubtless will force many a party to defend against a non-sovereign’s personal action brought decades after the claim had accrued. By the rise of governmental tort claim statutes, the public/private right distinction has now been relegated to antiquarian lore. If the court were to follow the standard American version of the nullum tempus rule, the protection enjoyed by municipalities qua holders of public interests in land would not be diminished one iota, yet those public bodies would grow powerless to harass either private citizens or other governmental entities with their ancient claims. A city’s lawyer should be held to no lesser degree of vigilance when bringing a personal action in the municipality's behalf than is expected of counsel who champion private causes.37
In short, I would hold that:
Because adverse possession of publicly held land can never ripen into title by prescription in favor of the hostile claimant, his period of occupancy will not run against any governmental record owner who holds for the public’s benefit; but time to bring a personal action does run against subordinate (non-sovereign) political entities unless the applicable statutory limitation explicitly excludes them from its operation.
To guard against all risk of upsetting settled rights, I would apply my pronouncement to this case, to all litigation now in appellate and certiorari process, and to those actions in the lower tribunals in which judgment will have been rendered after the issuance of mandate in this appeal.

. At common law, personal actions are for the recovery of movable property or for damages or other forms of redress for breach of contract or other kind of injury other than those affecting interests in land. Mathews v. Sniggs, 75 Okl. 108, 182 P. 703, 708 [1919].
The terms of 12 O.S.Supp.1984 § 2002 provide: “There shall be one form of action to be known as ‘civil action’.” [Emphasis added.] Even though the distinction between actions at law and suits in equity and all the forms of those actions have been abolished for pleading purposes, the principles of legal and equitable rights and remedies remain in force; the Pleading Code was not intended to alter rights, duties, and liabilities. See 12 O.S.Supp.1984 § 2002, supra, and Mathews v. Sniggs, supra, 182 P. at 706-707.

. See State v. Weems, 197 Okl. 106, 168 P.2d 629, 633 [1946] (Hurst, V.C.J., dissenting in part and quoting from Morris v. State, 88 Okl. 189, *138212 P. 588, 588-589 [1923]) and Lewis v. Moore, 199 F.2d 745, 749 [10th Cir.1952].

. The common-law rule, which relieves the sovereign from statutory time bars, is explained in United States v. Thompson, 98 U.S. 486, 489, 20 L.Ed. 194, 195 [1879], in this language:
"The rule of nullum tempus occurrit regi has existed as an element of the English law from a very early period. * * *
“The common law fixed no time as to the bringing of actions. Limitations derive their authority from statutes. The King was held never to be included, unless expressly named. No laches was imputable to him. These exemptions were founded upon considerations of public policy. It was deemed important that, while the sovereign was engrossed by the cares and duties of his office, the public should not suffer by the negligence of his servants. ‘In a representative government, where the people do not and cannot act in a body, where their power is delegated to others, and must of necessity be exercised by them, if exercised at all, the reason for applying these principles is equally cogent.’
“When the Colonies achieved their independence, each one took these prerogatives, which had belonged to the Crown; and when the National Constitution was adopted, they were imparted to the new government as incidents of the sovereignty thus created. * * * " [Emphasis added.]
See Anderson v. Ritterbusch, 22 Okl. 761, 98 P. 1002, 1012 [1908] and White v. State, 50 Okl. 97, 150 P. 716, 718 [1915].

. Oklahoma’s fundamental law does not appear to prevent the legislature from imposing reasonable time bars on the state or its political subdivisions for bringing lawsuits, so long as no vested rights or liabilities are disturbed. See Charles Banfield Company v. State ex rel. Fallis, Okl., 525 P.2d.638, 640 [1974] and Love v. Silverthorn, 187 Okl. 114, 101 P.2d 254, 257 [1940].

. See Annot.: Statute of limitations as applicable to action by municipality or other political subdivisions in absence of specific provisions in that regard. 113 A.L.R. 376; 17 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations (3rd Ed.) § 49.06 at 136. See also the cases cited infra note '26.
A leading municipal law textwriter summarized in this language the state of national law on the applicability of the nullum tempus rule to municipalities:
“Actions by municipalities are generally not exempt from the operation of general statutes of limitation, and their suits are therefore barred if the statutory period has run. Some jurisdictions qualify the rule and hold that, in the absence of a specific provision, general statutes of limitations apply to and may bar actions by local government units involving ‘proprietary’ rights but do not apply to actions involving ‘governmental’ rights.” [Citations omitted and emphasis added.] Charles S. Rhyne, The Law of Local Government Operations (1980) § 33.7 at 1084.

. Metropolitan R. Co. v. District of Columbia, 132 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 19, 22-23, 33 L.Ed. 231 [1889], where the Court explained the political status of municipalities in this language:
“* * * All municipal governments are but agencies of the superior power of the state or government by which they are constituted, and are invested with only such subordinate powers of local legislation and control as the superior legislature sees fit to confer upon them. * * *
“ * * * The subordinate legislative powers of a municipal character, which have been or may be lodged in the city corporations ...do not make those bodies sovereign. * * * We are clearly of the opinion that the plaintiff [District of Columbia] is a municipal corporation, having a right to sue and be sued, and subject to the ordinary rules that govern the law of procedure between private persons.” [Emphasis added.]

. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 575, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 1388, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 [1964] (cited in Waller v. Florida, 397 U.S. 387, 392, 90 S.Ct. 1184, 1187, 25 L.Ed.2d 435 [1970]).

. See supra note 1.

. See State ex rel Freeling v. Smith, 77 Okl. 260, 188 P. 96 [1920]; White v. State, supra note 3; Brown v. Board of Education, 148 Okl. 97, 298 P. 249, 252 [1931]; Sumpter v. State, Okl., 418 P.2d 918, 919 [1966]; State ex rel. Oklahoma Tax Com’n v. Emery, Okl.App., 645 P.2d 1048, 1049-1050 [1982]; Board of County Com’rs v. Good TP., infra note 10 107 P.2d at 807-808 (Davison, J., dissenting); accord State Insurance Fund v. Taron, Okl., 333 P.2d 508, 513 [1958] (Statute of limitation barred the State Insurance Fund’s action because the claim arose from its conduct of business, rather than from an activity attributable to the state’s sovereignty.). See also State ex rel. Cartwright v. Tidmore, Okl., 674 P.2d 14, 15-16 [1983] and Sears v. Fair, Okl., 397 P.2d 134, 138 [1964]. The court relies today on both of these cases and holds limitations inapplicable to personal actions by municipalities. Tidmore was a personal action by the state, and Sears was a real action against the state. For the distinction between personal and real actions see supra note 1 and infra note 14, respectively.

. See Board of County Com’rs v. Willett, 49 Okl. 254, 152 P. 365, 366 [1915] (citing Foote v. City of Watonga, infra note 13, and Metropolitan R. Co. v. District of Columbia, supra note 6); Brown v. Board of Education, supra note 9; and School Dist. No. 34 v. Joint School Dist. No. 34, 156 Okl. 5, 9 P.2d 771, 772-773 [1932]; but see Board of County Com’rs v. Good TP., 188 Okl. 151, 107 P.2d 805 [1940], discussed infra note 12, and State ex rel. Bd. of County Com’rs v. Shelton, Okl.App., 727 P.2d 103, 106-107 [1986].

. School Dist. No. 34 v. Joint School Dist. No. 34, supra note 10; Brown v. Board of Education, supra note 9, 298 P. at 253.

. In Board of County Com’rs v. Good TP., supra note 10, this court sub silentio extended the sovereign's protection from limitations by allowing it to be invoked offensively in a personal action by one public entity against another. The only issue the court discussed there was whether a county’s right to recover on its matured bond investment should be characterized as public or private. Davison, J., noted in dissent that, in a sense, every right possessed by political subdivisions could be labeled a public right and all the property they hold viewed to be for public use. He concluded that limitations should apply to political subdivisions unless a public right be at stake, in which case the right should be one that belongs to all the people of the state. Board of County Com’rs v. Good TP., supra note 10, 107 P.2d at 807 (Davison, J., dissenting). For support of its reasoning the dissent cites Herndon v. Board of Com’rs in and for Ponotoc County, infra note 16, a land case. My view parallels that of Davison, J. See in this connection Hershel v. University Hospital Foundation, Okl., 610 P.2d 237, 242-243 [1980] (Opala, J., concurring specially) and Bd. of Trustees of Bergen v. J.P. Fyfe, Inc., 192 N.J.Super. 433, 471 A.2d 38, 39-40 [1983].

. See, e.g., Foote v. Town of Watonga, 37 Okl. 43, 130 P. 597 [1913] (syllabus 4), where the court held:
“ * * * ‘Nullum tempus occurrit regi,’ is not restricted in its application to sovereign states or governments, but ...its application extends to and includes public rights of all kinds, and ... it applies to municipal corporations as trustees of the rights of the public, and protects from invasion and encroachment the property of the municipality which is held for and devoted to public use, no matter how lax the municipal authorities may have been in asserting the rights of the public.” [Emphasis added.]

. Real actions are for the recovery of lands, tenements, or hereditaments or for the protection of real property interests. Mathews v. Sniggs, supra note 1, 182 P. at 708.

. See Foote v. Town of Watonga, supra note 13, 130 P. at 597-598.

. See Herndon v. Board of Com'rs in and for Pontotoc County, 158 Okl. 14, 11 P.2d 939, 940 [1932].

. Town of Chouteau v. Blankenship, 194 Okl. 401, 152 P.2d 379, 383 [1944],

. When compared with ordinary limitations, statutes prescribing the minimum occupancy period for claiming title to land by adverse possession are in a somewhat different category. They do not only extinguish one’s remedy to sue for possession of land. When real property has been adversely occupied for the statutory period, these limitations operate "to vest the disseisor with title.” [Emphasis added.] 60 O.S. 1981 § 333, infra; Stolfa v. Gaines, 140 Okl. 292, 283 P. 563, 567 [1930]. The terms of 60 O.S. 1981 § 333 provide:
"Occupancy for the period prescribed by civil procedure, or any law of this State as sufficient to bar an action for the recovery of the property, confers a title thereto, denominated a title by prescription, which is sufficient against all" [Emphasis added.]

. "Lapse of time, coupled with non-possession or inaction, may alter a man’s legal position vis-a-vis his property, both corporeal and incorporeal, in several different ways. The law may (1) bar the owner from asserting his rights by a droitural action and thus leave these rights suspended in a state of unenforceability; (2) extinguish his legal right as well as his remedy; (3) transfer his right to another who has exercised them by long-continued possession or use; and (4) impose a presumption that long-continued possession or use by another had its beginning in a lawful devolution of right. The legal concept embodied in the first example aims at destroying actionability only, while that in the second example also effects an extinguishment of rights. * * *" Opala, Praescripto Temporis and Its Relation to Prescriptive Easements in the Anglo-American Law, 7 Tulsa L.J. 107 (1971).
Statutes of repose, as distinguished from statutes of limitation, might be viewed as extinguishing the right, because they prevent the claim (the right) from accruing in the first place. Reynolds v. Porter, Okl., 760 P.2d 816, 819-820 [1988]; Smith v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., Okl, 732 P.2d 466, 468-469 n. 11 [1987]. See also, Mobbs v. City of Lehigh, Okl., 655 P.2d 547, 550-551 [1982] and State ex rel. Cent. State Griffin Mem. Hosp. v. Reed, infra note 20.

. See State ex rel. Cent. State Griffin Mem. Hosp. v. Reed, Okl., 493 P.2d 815, 818 [1972].

. The pertinent terms of 58 O.S.1981 § 333 are: "If a claim arising upon a contract heretofore made, be not presented within the time limited in the notice [two months from the date of the first publication under § 332], it is barred forever, except as follows: If it be not then due, or if it be contingent, it may be presented within one (1) month after it becomes due or absolute; if it be made to appear by the affidavit of the claimant, to the satisfaction of the executor or administrator and the judge of the district court, that the claimant had no notice as provided in this article, by reason of being out of the state, it may be presented at any time before a decree of distribution is entered * * *.” [Emphasis added.]

. The pertinent terms of 16 O.S.1981 §§ 72 and 73 are:
“[§ 72] Such marketable record title shall be subject to:
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(b) All interests preserved by the filing of proper notice or by possession by the same owner continuously for a period of thirty (30) years or more, in accordance with Section 74 of this title."
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"[§ 73] Subject to matters stated in Section 2 [§ 72] hereof, such marketable record title shall be held by its owner and shall be taken by any person dealing with the land free and clear of all interests, claims or charges whatsoever, the existence of which depends upon any act, transaction, event or omission that occurred prior to the effective date of the root of title. All such interests, claims or charges, however denominated, whether legal or equitable, present or future, whether such interests, claims or charges are asserted by a per*141son sui juris or under a disability, whether such person is within or without the state, whether such person is natural or corporate, or is private or governmental, are hereby declared to be null and void" [Emphasis added.]

. A city’s interest in land is extinguished if it has not been preserved by filing a notice within a thirty-year period. Mobbs v. City of Lehigh, supra note 19.

. Limitations bar only one’s remedy but never his right. The right never dies, while the time-barred remedy is lost forever. “ ‘An immortal right to bring an eternally prohibited action is a metaphysical subtlety’ produced by feudal jurists. The notion that a right may survive the extinction of all remedies for its enforcement is peculiar to the Anglo-American law." Opala, Praescripto Temporis and Its Relation to Prescriptive Easements in the Anglo-American Law, supra note 19 at 108 n. 1, 109-110.

. "Statutes of limitation always have vexed the philosophical mind for it is difficult to fit them into a completely logical and symmetrical system of law. There has been controversy as to their effect. Some are of the opinion that like the analogous civil law doctrine of prescription limitations statutes should be viewed as extinguishing the claim and destroying the right itself. Admittedly it is troublesome to sustain as a ‘right’ a claim that can find no remedy for its invasion. On the other hand, some common-law courts have regarded true statutes of limitation as doing no more than to cut off resort to the courts for enforcement of a claim. We do not need to settle these arguments.” [Footnotes omitted and emphasis added.] Chase Securities Corporation v. Donaldson, 325 U.S. 304, 313, 65 S.Ct. 1137, 1142, 89 L.Ed. 1628 [1945] (cited in Pryse Monument Co. v. District Court, Etc., Okl., 595 P.2d 435, 438 n. 14 [1979]).

. See, e.g., Covington County v. O’Neal, 239 Ala. 222, 195 So. 234, 238 [1940] (citing Montgomery County v. City of Montgomery, 195 Ala. 197, 70 So. 642, 643-644 [1916]); Hart v. Sternberg 205 Ark. 929, 171 S.W.2d 475, 478 [1943]; City of Los Angeles v. Los Angeles County, 9 Cal.2d 624, 72 P.2d 138, 139-140 [1937] (followed in San Marcos Water D. v. San Marcos Uni. School, 190 Cal.App.3d 1038, 235 Cal.Rptr. 827, 830 [4 Dist. 1987]); R.A. Civitello Co. v. City of New Haven, 6 Conn.App. 212, 504 A.2d 542, 546-547 [1986]; Mayor and Council of Wilmington v. Dukes, 52 Del. 318, 157 A.2d 789, 795 [1960]; State v. Stuart, 46 Ind.App. 611, 91 N.E. 613, 615 [1910]; Great Western Ins. Co. v. Saunders, 223 Iowa 926, 274 N.W. 28, 31-32 [1937]; In re Ernst's Guardianship, 158 Neb. 15, 62 N.W.2d 110, 111 [1954]; Bd. of Trustees of Bergen v. J.P. Fyfe, Inc., supra note 12, 471 A.2d at 39-40; City of Buffalo v. Watkins, 102 Misc.2d 17, 422 N.Y.S.2d 563, 563-564 [1979]; Rosedale School Dist. No. 5 v. Towner County, 56 N.D. 41, 216 N.W. 212, 215-216 [1927]; State v. Gibson, 130 Ohio St. 318, 199 N.E. 185, 186-187 [1935] (followed in City of Kettering v. Berger, 4 Ohio App.3d 254, 448 N.E.2d 458, 465 [1982]); Trustees of Proprietors of Kingston v. Lehigh Valley C. Co., 241 Pa. 469, 88 A. 763, 766 [1913]; Johnson v. Black, 103 Va. 477, 49 S.E. 633, 638 [1905]; and Bums v. Board of Sup’rs of Stafford County, supra note 28, 315 S.E.2d at 858-860.

. C & C Tile Co. v. Independent Sch. D. No. 7 of Tulsa Cty., Okl., 503 P.2d 554, 559 [1972]; Special Indemnity Fund v. Barnes, Okl., 434 P.2d 218, 221 [1967]; Adams v. Coon, 36 Okl. 644, 129 P. 851, 853 [1913].

. Adams v. Coon, supra note 27. See also, Burns v. Board of Sup’rs of Stafford County, 227 Va. 354, 315 S.E.2d 856, 859 [1984].

. Adams v. Coon, supra note 27.

. See Board of County Com'rs v. Good TP., supra note 10, 107 P.2d at 808 (Davison, J., dissenting) and R.A. Civitello Co. v. City of New Haven, supra note 26, 504 A.2d at 546.

. Even where one municipality sues another over a matter of purely fiscal accounting the action is subject to statutory limitations. See Brown v. Board of Education, supra note 9, 298 P. at 252.

. See People v. Hale, 320 Ill.App. 645, 52 N.E.2d 308, 310-311 [1943]; Great Western Ins. Co. v. Saunders, supra note 26, 274 N.W. at 31-32; Bd. of Trustees of Bergen v. J.P. Fyfe, Inc., supra note 12, 471 A.2d at 40; Bergen Commun. Col. Trustees v. J.P. Fyfe, Inc., 188 NJ.Super. 288, 457 A.2d 83, 86-88 [1982]; and City of Reidsville v. Burton, 269 N.C. 206, 152 S.E.2d 147, 151-152 [1967].
In Bd. of Trustees of Bergen v. J.P. Fyfe, Inc., supra note 12, 471 A.2d at 40, the New Jersey appellate court noted that there was no support in authority for extending the nullum tempus rule to personal actions:
"No case in this state is cited, nor is one disclosed in research, holding that the state or a governmental subdivision either may or may not bring a cause of action for unliqui-dated damages for breach of contract or for tort, beyond the time period of the statute of limitations and exempt from its bar in the absence of a specific statutory provision. ******
“Without precedential authority in this state and contrary to strong decisional law authority elsewhere in the United States, we do not extend the benefit of the ancient doctrine of nullum tempus occurrit regi to plaintiff community college, a political subdivision, in its action to recover damages in contract and in tort for alleged defective materials and workmanship in the construction of the roof of a college building." [Emphasis added.]

. See, e.g., State v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 239 Ala. 445, 195 So. 426, 427 [1940]; Tehama County v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., 33 Cal.App.2d 465, 91 P.2d 936, 941 [3 Dist.1939]; MacNeill v. McElroy, 193 Ga. 55, 17 S.E.2d 169, 171 [1941]; Lemhi County v. Boise Live Stock Loan Co., 47 Idaho 712, 278 P. 214, 216 [1929]; City of New Bedford v. Lloyd Investment Assoc., Inc., 363 Mass. 112, 292 N.E.2d 688, 691 [1973]; Town of Crenshaw v. Panola Coun*143ty, 115 Miss. 891, 76 So. 741, 743 [1917]; City of Pendleton v. Holman, 177 Or. 532, 164 P.2d 434, 437 [1945]; City of Kaufman v. French, 171 S.W. 831, 836 [Tex.Civ.App.1914]; Village of Gilman v. Northern States Power Co., 242 Wis. 130, 7 N.W.2d 606, 608-609 [1943]; and Annot.: Statutory provision that statute of limitation shall not apply to action in name of municipality or other public corporation, as applicable to actions involving proprietary as distinguished from governmental functions. 162 A.L.R. 261.

.See 51 O.S.Supp.1984 § 152.1(A) and 51 O.S. 1981 § 166, infra.
The terms of 51 O.S.Supp.1984 § 152.1(A) are:
"The State of Oklahoma does hereby adopt the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The state, its political subdivisions, and all of their employees acting within the scope of their employment, whether performing governmental or proprietary functions, shall be immune from liability for torts.” [Emphasis added.]
The terms of 51 O.S. 1981 § 166 are:
"The distinction existing between governmental functions and proprietary functions of political subdivisions shall not be affected by the provisions of this act; however the provisions of this act shall apply to both governmental and proprietary functions." [Emphasis added.]

. See 16 O.S. 1981 § 73, supra note 22 and Mobbs v. City of Lehigh, supra note 19, 655 P.2d at 551.

. Hershel v. University Hospital Foundation (Opala, J., concurring specially), supra note 12, 610 P.2d at 242-243.

. “It is just as much for the public interest and tranquility that municipal corporations should be limited in the time of bringing suits as that individuals or private corporations should be.” Metropolitan R. Co. v. District of Columbia, supra note 6, 10 S.Ct. at 23.