Limit

2. <A bound; a restraint; a circumscription; a boundary. 22N. Y. 429.

n.; LIMITATION. Limit is chiefly used in its vernacular sense of a boundary, restriction, or termination of a subject in any respect; while limitation has a technical use, when restric- Limitation of actions. A term prescribed by positive law within which one having a right of action must bring suit, or he will become barred. Theoretically, a person who has a demand against another might well be allowed to prosecute it any time; and this is thought to have been the earliest view. But before long the allowing the privilege of suing to last for ever was found very inconvenient. The earliest statutes, passed to fix a time beyond which a right of action should not be deemed to endure, dated the term allowed for suing from some notable period; thus requiring a new law whenever the term became too long. But in 1540 and 1623 acts were passed prescribing definite periods, within which the various causes of action must be sued. Aug. L'im. ch. 2. These laws, called statutes of limitation, are not founded upon any actxial probability that the demand has been paid or is otherwise unfounded, but are deemed statutes of repose; that is, they rest upon the will of the community that controversies shall not stand open for ever, but, after a reasonable time accorded to a party to make his complaint, if he has not done so, he shall be barred. The principal English statutes of this description are: the famous original limitation law, Stat Jac. I. ch. 16, the general principles of which underlie and ai-e embodied in the American statutes; also Stat. 3 & 4 Wm. IV. ch. 42 (modified by 37 & 38 Vict. ch. 57), relating more particulai'ly to actions on specialties; 9 Geo. III. ch. 16, for suits by the crown; and 3 & 4 Wm. IV. ch. 27, for actions of ejectment and similar suits. In the United States, the various states all have their statutes of limitations. Provisions of this nature also exist in acts of congress. Criminal proceedings are subject to limitations as well as civil, varying with the statute of the jurisdiction. But independent courts of equity and admiralty are not deemed technically governed by these statutes, in their full extent, though they apply the principle of the statute as matter of judicial discretion. operation, see Wharton's and Bouvier's dictionaries. The word limitation, as applied to actions, signifies the period of time which the law gives a man to bring his action for the recovery of any thing; and this period of time within which a man must bring his action in order to recover the thing sought is limited by the legislature in some cases to two years, in some to six years, and so on. The acts of parliament which prescribe these limits within which actions must be commenced are thence called the statutes of limitation, and the subject generally is termed limitation of actions. Brown. The limitation of an estate is the marking out, in a deed or other instrument in writing, of the estate or interest which a person is intended to hold in any property comprised therein. Thus, when it is said, with reference to a conveyance to A and his heirs, that the word heirs in a deed is a word of limitation and not of purchase, the meaning is, that the word heirs marks out the nature of the estate taken by A, which is an estate in fee-simple; and that the heirs of A take nothing directly {i.e., take nothing by purchase) under such a limitation. Limitation is also used to signify a condition in law, as opposed to a condition in deed. Thus, when an estate or interest in land is so expressly confined and limited by the words of its creation that it cannot endure beyond a particular contingency, this is a limitation or condition in law; as when land is granted to a man so long as he is parson of Dale, or while he continues unmarried, &c. The estate ceases when, in the one case, the tenant ceases to be parson of Dale, or when, in the other, he marries. On the other hand, a condition in deed is where an estate is granted expressly upon condition to be void upon a given contingency, or so that the grantee continues unmarried, or provided he goes to York, &c. (2 Bl. Com. 155; 1 Steph. Com. 300.) Mozley ^ W. Limitation of assise. In old English practice, a certain time prescribed by statute, within which a man was required to allege himself or his ancestor to have been seised of lands sued for by a writ of assise. C'owel.