Court Opinion

ID: 9808329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:34:32.428044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:11:15.066956
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
dissenting. The- case herein presented falls within the express words and the purpose of The Code, sec. 158 — “An action for relief not herein provided for must be commenced within ten years after the cause of action shall have accrued.” This section was intended to be a universal statute of repose, applying to all causes of action not included among those specifically enumerated in the preceding sections of the statute of limitations. It could have no other purpose. If it does not apply to this case, by what reasoning can it be made to apply to any ? Many of the cases in which it has been applied are to be found in Clark’s Code (3 Ed.), pp. 75-18, to not one of Avhich it was more applicable than this. It being almost impossible to enumerate all eases for which a statute of repose was needed, this section was passed *170to embrace, in its very words, any “action for relief not herein provided for.” This mortgage conld have been foreclosed in an action at any time subsequent to the last payment in 1890. The defendant, Wester, having failed to do so for ten years, is debarred hy section 158 from having recourse to such action now. In Menzel v. Hinton, 132 N. C., 660, emphasis was put on the fact that to sell under the power of sale required no action in court, for, it was conceded, such action would he barred. The Code, sec. 152 (3), applies only where the mortgagee,or trustee is in possession. The opinion of the Court in this case rests upon the ground that it does not apply where' the mortgagee or trustee has not been in possession, hence such case necessarily is one not therein “provided for” and falls under section 158. There is no provision in section 152 (3) forbidding the statute to run except when the mortgagee or trustee is in possession, but merely that in such case the bar is ten years. There is no reason why the general bar of ten years should not apply to the case where the trustee or mortgagee is not in possession as well as to other omitted cases, for section 158 applies to all cases not otherwise “herein provided for.”