Court Opinion

ID: 9825723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 14:00:50.86128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:18.542783
License: Public Domain

Mehaeey, J., (dissenting). I cannot agree that this court has the right to amend or suspend the statute of limitations. The opinion on rehearing says: “Upon these considerations onr former opinions are modified' to the extent of now holding1! that the right to sue is suspended where lands or town lots have been sold to the state, and that this suspension is not dependent upon the validity or invalidity of the sale to the state. The right is suspended in either case, as the state cannot he divested of its paramount lien for its taxes, whéther the sale was good or had. It must 'also follow from this holding that the right of the improvement district to sue is not barred by the statute of limitations through failure to sue while the actual or apparent title is in the state.” The statute provides when the suits to collect assessments shall he commenced. If not commencéd within the time fixed by the statute the cause of action is barred. Section 12 of Art. 2 of the 'Constitution provides: “No power of suspending or setting aside the law or laws of the state shall ever be exercised except by the General Assembly.” This court in discussing the power of the Governor to remit penalties for1 delinquencies in (the assessment of taxes said: “The manifest design of the framers of the Constitution was to limit the power to pardon for crime and to remit fines and forfeitures to criminal and penal cases after conviction of crime or judgment for the imposition of fine or forfeiture, and not to allow its application to penalties and forfeitures civil, remedial and coercive in their nature. This is clearly indicated in another provision of the Constitution which expressly declares that : ‘No power of suspending or setting aside the law or laws of the state shall ever be exercised except by the General Assembly.’ Const., Art. 2, § 12. The effect of a general amnesty as was attempted by the proclamation now under review would operate as a suspension of the law and come within the spirit, if not within the letter, of the inhibition of the Constitution just quoted, and when the two provisions of the Constitution are read together it is clear that it was intended to confine the power of the executive, with respect to the remission of fines and forfeitures, strictly to criminal and penal cases after judgment, and not to remedial and coercive penalties such as a penalty for non-assessments or nonpayments of taxes.” Hutton v. McCleskey, 132 Ark. 391, 199 S. W. 74. This court has also held that a statute providing that no action for the recovery of any land against 'any person, his heirs or assigns who may hold such lands under a donation deed from the state, shall be maintained, unless it appear that the plaintiff, his ancestor or grantor was seized or possessed of the lands within two years next 'before the commencement of such suit or action. This court said: “The statute itself contains no exceptions from its provisions in favor of infants or other persons under disability, and there is nothing in it that implies that the legislature intended that any such exceptions should be made. * *. * That such exceptions are commendable, and evince a proper, just, and humane regard for the rights and interests of a large and helpless class of landowners cannot be controverted. But they are within the power of the legislature to grant or withhold, and its exercise of the power cannot 'be restrained or varied by the courts to subserve principles of justice and humanity. ’ ’ Sims v. Cumby, 53 Ark. 418, 14 S. W. 623; Sparks v. Farris, 71 Ark. 117, 71 S. W. 255. Section 190, 17 B-. C. L., Title, Limitations, reads as follows: “As a general rule the courts are without power to read into these statutes exceptions which have not been embodied therein, however reasonable they may seem. It is not for judicial tribunals to extend the law to all cases coming within the reason of it, so long as they are not within the letter. Considerations of apparent inconvenience or hardship will not be allowed to control. The enactment of the law-making power within its legitimate field must not be obstructed by the judicial administration. Such power is ample, if it sees fit, to extinguish any right enforceable by an action, if judicial remedies for such enforcement are not invoked within such reasonable-time as it sees fit to name. The possessor of the right may be under disability personally to enforce the same within the prescribed period by reason of infancy, insanity, imprisonment or other cause, and yet the statute in general terms, not containing any exception to save the right, will extinguish it. The legislature is the judge, and the sole judge in such matters, subject to no judicial review whatever, so long as it acts within the boundaries of reason. It is far better that occasionally one should suffer severely from the enforcement of the law, as the court finds it, than that they should endeavor to bend the law out of its manifest scope to avoid that result. So courts in construing a special statute of limitation will not read another statute into it and thus incorporate exceptions not contained therein, or give it any new or unusual interpretation, but they are to give' effect to the object of the law creating the exception which is to prevent the statute from running during the time the claimant is prevented without fault on his part from suing, so that he can have the full benefit of the time allowed- him in which to bring his action. In applying the rule it has been held that in absence of a statute making concealment an exception to the statute of limitations, the courts cannot create one, however harsh and inequitable the enforcement of the statute may he. And the courts cannot create an exception where'an action was not commenced within the period because of the act of a person in designedly eluding service of process.” Citing: Lewis v. Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Co., 6 Penn. 316, 66 Atl. 471; Pietsch v. Milbrath, 123 Wis. 647, 101 N. W. 388. No claims of people need protection more than infants and others under disability, but this court has uniformly held that the power to protect them belongs to the legislature. If the court is powerless to protect infants and others under disability by suspending the statute of limitations, it certainly cannot protect improvement districts and the inhabitants thereof by suspending the statute of limitations. I think the district can and must sue within the time fixed by statute. The action, when brought, if the title is in the state, can either be continued, or if there is a judgment and sale it would be subject to the paramount interest of the state. I respectfully dissent from the holding of the majority that this court has power to suspend the statute of limitations. Mr. Justice 'Butler agrees with me in the conclusion herein reached.