Court Opinion

ID: 9807976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:23:02.981014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:06:19.739778
License: Public Domain

Eaikcloth, C. J.,
dissenting : This action is on a note payable to plaintiff and signed by W. E. Collins, principal, and Thomas Collins, surety, da,ted March 4, 1886, payable 9 months after date. The note bears 10 per cent, interest, and it was a South Carolina contract.' Thomas Collins died intestate June 2, 1892, and defendant qualified as his administrator November 30, 1894. There were several credits on the note, the last one paid by the principal on October 28, 1892, a few months after the *625death of the surety, Thomas Collins. This action was commenced on July 26, 1897.
In order to prove that the legal rate of interest in South Carolina was 10 per cent, at the date of the note, his Honor allowed the plaintiff to put in evidence “a bound printed statute law, purporting to be statutes published by authority, as the public statute law of the State of South Carolina, of date for 1883.” Defendant excepted.
Our Code, Section 1338, provides that ‘ ‘ a printed copy of a statute or other written law of another State . . . contained in a book or publication purporting or proved to have been published by the authority thereof, shall be evidence of the statute law, etc.” Hilliard v. Outlaw, 92 N. C., 266; McDugald v. Smith, 33 N. C., 576, and The Code just cited support the' ruling of his Honor. Exception not sustained.
The defendant relied upon the statute of limitations, and insisted that the death of the surety severed his joint obligation and devolved the liability on his principal. He cited good authorities in other States to support his proposition as to joint obligations, but furnished none to support it when the obligation is joint and several, as it is under our statute. When a partial payment on a note is made either by the principal or any of the sureties before it is barred, the payment continues in force as to all the obligors. Green v. Greensboro College, 83 N C., 449; Moore v. Goodwin, 109 N. C., 218.
The payment before the bar stops the course of the statute as to all, and becomes a new starting point, from which the statute runs as if that was the day of maturity of the debt. And so at each payment. Green v. *626Greensboro College, supra. These results follow from the fact that all are obligors, and because it is their common liability and they have a community of interest. They constitute a class, and the act of one, as a payment, becomes the legal act of the whole class. This effect does not reach any other class connected with the same transaction, as drawers, acceptors or joint endorsers, except those in the same class. Wood v. Barber, 90 N. C., 76, and cases cited. On the death of the surety, his liability fell upon his representatives. The administrator qualified November 30, 1894, and the last payment was made October 28, 1892. After some debate, it was settled that the time between the death and the issuance of letters of administration should not be counted against the creditor, for, in the language of Gfas-ton, J., in Buie v. Buie, 24 N. C., 87, “It cannot be doubted, we think, that the want of a person against •whom to bring suit rebuts the presumption of payment arising from forbearance to sue.” The reason is equally applicable to the statute of limitations, when there is no one to sue. Lee v. Gause, 24 N. C., 440; Jolliffe v. Pitt, 2 Vern., 694. This doctrine was reconsidered and sustained in Long v. Clegg, 94 N. C., 763.
Our effort tó reconcile the decisions on this question has not been successful. It has been generally stated that when the statute begins to run nothing can stop it, unless the statute contains some limitations. In some cases a literal interpretation worked gross injustice, and the court was induced to find some reasonable exception in such cases when it could do so. Soon after the Act of 1715, our predecessors were perplexed with the same difficulty that we have. The difficulty arises from facts like these: When the creditor dies before the right .of action accrues, or before the claim is barred, and no *627representative is appointed until after the bar intervenes; when the debtor dies before the action is barred, and no personal representative is appointed until after that time; when payments are made by either before or after the death of the debtor, principal or surety, and there is no one in being to sue or be sued, with a statute fixing a different period of limitation as to a principal or surety, and the statutes for settling the estates of deceased persons, and other conditions presented in the course of affairs, and the provisions of The Code, 164. Out of these and other conditions we might expect some contradictions in the decisions, but we think the principle, on which we can put this case, is well settled. This Court, at an early date, after holding that, until there is some person to make claim, such as can be prosecuted, there is no cause of action, and the bar does not begin to run, said : ‘ ‘ The moment it is established that this act is in the nature of an act of limitations, the bar of which does not begin to run until there is a cause of action, that moment it follows that the want of a representative of the debtor, as well as of a representative of the'creditor, takes the case out of the bar of the statute. Cause of action is the right to prosecute an action with effect; and, legally,- a cause of action does not exist until there be a person in. existence capable of suing, and also a person against whom the action may be brought. ” McKinder v. Littlejohn, 1 Ired. 66, citing several English cases. This reasonable rule has not been overruled, but was reconsidered and sustained in Buie v. Buie, 2 Ired., 87, and in Long v. Clegg, 94 N. C., 766. We do not now feel at. liberty to upset a rule so long established, if we had any doubt about its correctness. As the plaintiff had no opportunity to present his claim against the surety after his death until the administra*628tor was appointed, and as the summons was issued within three years after that time, the plea in bar does not defeat the action.
Affirmed.