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11 Ind. 123

Right v. Martin

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided November 24, 1858

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1858-11-24

<p>Action commenced in 1856, to procure execution against land, upon a judgment rendered in 1839. The transcript was not filed until October, 1853. Answer, that the judgment was rendered more than fourteen years before the filing of the transcript, and had not been revived, wherefore no lion attached, &c. Held, substantially good, but not formally correct.</p> <p>A repealing act cannot renew a liability that has already been extinguished.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1858-11-24

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently March 1976

7 state decisions

301858186018701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Worden, J.

¶1This was a proceeding by the appellees against the appellants, in the Common Pleas, to procure execution against certain lands, upon a judgment rendered by a justice of the peace, on the 25th of August, 1839.

¶2The defendant filed an answer of several paragraphs.

¶3Trial by the Court, finding for the plaintiffs, and judgment awarding execution.

¶4Numerous objections are made to these proceedings, but we shall only notice one, as that is decisive of the case.

¶5The defendants answered, amongst other things, that the judgment was rendered more than fourteen years before the filing of the transcript, and that the transcript was filed without any revival of the judgment; wherefore no lien attached, &e.

¶6This we regard as a substantially good plea of the statute of limitations, although not formally so. A demurrer was sustained to this paragraph, and exception taken. It would have been more technical and correct if the pleader had shown that more than six years had elapsed after the rendition of the judgment and before the repeal of the limitation law of 1843; but we regard the above as sufficient, as it appears affirmatively, by the complaint, that the judgment was rendered in August, 1839, and the transcript not filed in the Common Pleas until October, 1853, nor the suit commenced until April, 1856.

¶7By the act of 1843, R. S. 1843, p. 686, § 101, actions on justices’ judgments are limited to six years. This provision was repéaled by an act of Janaury, 1846, but the six years had elapsed before the repealing act was passed, and the repealing act could not renew a liability that had already been extinguished. This point is fully settled by the case of Stipp et al. v. Brown, 2 Ind. R. 647.

¶8The demurrer to this paragraph of the answer should have been overruled.

D. M’Donald and A. G. Porter, for the appellants.

¶9Per Curiam. — The judgment is reversed with costs, Cause remanded for further proceedings,

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