Court Opinion

ID: 6548874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-19 22:22:11.660466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:56:03.061410
License: Public Domain

McCulloch, C. J., (dissenting). The majority hold, as T understand from the opinion, that an escaped convict can not plead the statute of limitations for the reason that there is no statutory provision for service of process on him. I take issue on that proposition. Section 6051 of Kirby’s Digest reads as follows: “Where the defendant is a prisoner in the penitentiary a copy of the complaint must accompany the summons, and the service must be upon the keeper of the penitentiary, who shall deliver the copies of the complaint and summons to the defendant. And a copy of the summons must also be delivered to the wife of the prisoner, or, if he has no wife, left at the place where he resided or claimed to reside, prior to his confinement, with some person of the age of sixteen years.” Another provision of the statute is that service may be had “by leaving a copy of such summons at the usual place of abode of the defendant, with some person who is .a member of his family over the age of sixteen years.” Third subdivision of section 6042, Kirby’s Digest. Now, it is plain that the provisions of section 6051 are solely for the benefit of a convict while confined in the State penitentiary, and the statute requires, for his protection, that while he is confined in the penitentiary a copy of the complaint and summons must be served on the keeper for his use, and also that a copy must be delivered to his wife or other person over sixteen years of age at his former residence. If he is not confined in^ the penitentiary, but has voluntarily left it, the provisions of section 6051 do not apply, and other methods of service are sufficient, by delivering a copy to him in person or to a member of his family over sixteen years of age at his usual place of abode. It seems to me to be a peculiar state of the law that a convict is immune from process because he wrongfully leaves the place where the statute provides a method of service on him. If that method of service was exclusive, he could not, of course, be otherwise served, but I can not believe, from the language of the statute that it was so intended. As before stated, that method of service is provided for his protection, and he forfeits it by voluntarily leaving the place, and may be served by any other statutory method provided for other persons. Section 5088 only makes an exception to the operation of the statute of limitations against a person who by his wrongful act prevents the commencement of an action against him. It is not every wrongful act that operates to prevent the commencement of an action. Merely because a convict escapes from the penitentiary does not prevent the commencement of an action against him; and unless he absconds or conceals himself so that process can not be served in some of the statutory modes, the statute of limitations is not suspended. If he has a place of abode known to his creditor, and is to be found there, the statute of limitations continues to run in his favor. I fail to see how appellee’s confinement in the penitentiary and his alleged escape therefrom has anything to do with the case except as bearing on the question of evasion of the service of process; and if he was living openly at his usual place of abode, and appellant knew it, or by the exercise of reasonable diligence could have known it, the statute of limitations was not suspended. The question as to the alleged agreement for postponement of the maturity of the debt was properly submitted to the jury. I fail to discover any reversible error in the record, and the judgment should therefore be affirmed. Mr. Justice Kirby concurs in this opinion.