Wilson v. Appleton

Decided March 15, 1821

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1821-03-15

Assumpsit on several promises. The plaintiff names himself of London, in the kingdom of Great Britain, merchant, an alien, never resident within the United States, or either of them. The defendant pleads that the cause of action did not accrue within six years, &c. The plaintiff replies, that at the time when the cause of action accrued to him, he was beyond sea, without any of the United States, viz., at London, &c., and hath ever since so continued.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1821-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently November 1950

1 federal appellate · 2 district · 8 state decisions

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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Curia.

¶1The defendant’s counsel, to support the rejoinder, have argued that the saving in the statute was intended to apply to citizens of the commonwealth only, who may be absent beyond sea, when their causes of action accrue. But the saving in the statute is general to all who are beyond sea, and the word return cannot restrict the operation to those only who have been in the commonwealth, and have left it for temporary purposes.

¶2As to the fact averred in the rejoinder, that the plaintiff had an agent in the commonwealth during bis absence, this might be a reasonable exception to the saving, if the legislature had seen fit to introduce it. But such a case not being provided for, it is not for the Court to legislate on the subject (5).

¶3Rejoinder adjudged bad.

¶4 [Vide Byrne vs. Crowninshield, ante, 56, and cases in the note.—Ed ]