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23 Miss. 68

White v. Johnson

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided January 15, 1851

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1851-01-15

This was an action of trover brought in the circuit court of Yazoo county, to recover- the value of a slave claimed by plaintiffs. The suit was instituted in March, 1848, and defendant plead, not guilty, and the statute of limitations of three years. To the second plea, the plaintiffs replied, that they were infants when the cause of action accrued, and so continued until within three years next before the commencement of the suit.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1851-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently September 2003

5 state decisions

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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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Mr. Justice Clayton

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The only point in this case is, whether since the statute of 1844, amendatory of the acts of limitations, there is any saving *74of the rights of infants, whose suits have not be.en brought within the time limited by that act. The question arises in an action of trover.

¶3The act of 1844 does not contain the usual saving clause in favor of those who labor under disabilities; the doubt, therefore is, whether the saving in the previous acts is still in force, or has been repealed.

¶4It may be first observed, that the statute of 1844 does not purport to introduce an entirely new series of enactments, and to be a perfect and complete system within itself. It only professes to be an amendment and modification of the former acts on the subject. It shortens the period of limitation in regard to most actions, and contains a clause repealing “ all acts and parts of acts in conflict with, and contrary to, its provisions.”

¶5Then the question is, Whether the 94th section of the act of 1822, H. & H. 569, which contains the usual saving clause, is repealed, or is still in force. A series of acts upon one subject, are to be construed as one whole; and where in a subsequent statute there is no express repeal of a former, the court will not hold the former to be repealed by implication, unless there be a plain and unavoidable repugnancy between them. See Planters Bank v. The State, 6 S. & M. 628. In this instance there is no express repeal of the saving clause, nor is there any such conflict between the provisions of the act of 1844 and the saving clause, contained in the previous act, as makes a repeal by implication necessary. It is certainly a more just .exposition of the intention of the legislature, to hold the previous saving clause to be in force, than to decide that it was their intention to cut off a class of rights, which have generally appeared to be the especial objects of their care and favor. A total change of policy in this respect, without any conceivable reason, cannot be presumed. These considerations could have no weight if a contrary intention had been expressed, but in the absence of such expression they are entitled to influence.

¶6The court below sustained the demurrer to the replication of infancy in this case, and gave judgment for the defendant. *75This was error, for which the judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings.

¶7Judgment reversed.

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