Mayor of Hagerstown v. Sehner

Miller, J., delivered the opinion of the Court: This action was instituted by the appellee against the Mayor and Council of Hagerstown, a municipal corporation, on the 4th of May, 1867; to recover damages for injury to his hardware store situated within the corporate limits of said town, and for the destruction, injury and taking away of his goods and other personal property therein deposited, done by riotous and tumultuous assemblages of people on the nights of the 24th and 25th days of May, 1862. The suit, in "form an action on the case, was brought under the provisions of Article 82 of the Code, which is a codification of the Act of 1835, ch. 137. The constitutional validity of this law has been recognized by several decisions of this Court, and was in no wise assailed in this case. Its provisions are familiar and need not be here stated at length.

It is only necessary to say’that it fixes no limit of time within which suits under it may he brought and prescribes no form of action for the injured party, but simply declares that “the full amount of the damage so done shall he recoverable by the sufferer or sufferers by suit at law against the county, town or city within whose jurisdiction such ¹⁸⁹ riot or tumult occurred,” “and that in any suit under this Article, the plaintiff may declare generally and give the special matter in evidence.” The defendants besides non cid. pleaded that the cause of action did not accrue within three years before suit instituted. The plaintiff demurred to the plea of limitations and that demurrer was sustained. The verdict and judgment were in favor of the plaintiff' upon issue joined on the plea of “not guilty,” and this appeal by the defendants presents the single question, was the demurrer to the plea of limitations rightfully sustained by the Court below ? Before this suit was instituted, the Legislature had passed the Act of 1867, eh. 282, amending the second section of Article 82 of the Code, so as to provide “that any cause of action that may have heretofore arisen under the first section of this Article shall be prosecuted within the period of five years from the time of such cause accruing, and not after; and all causes under the first section hereafter accruing, shall be prosecuted within the period of three years from the time of the accrual of the same.” The suit having been brought more than three and less than five years after the cause of action accrued, the power of the Legislature to extend the time of limitations in such cases is the question to which most of the very able and elaborate arguments of counsel both oral and written have been addressed.

The Court has encountered great difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory determination of this question, and it was in consequence of this difficulty that a re-argument was ordered at the last term. It has now become our duty notwithstanding the embarrassments which still surround it, to dispose of the case. To determine the statute to be invalid, it must of course be assumed that the existing law of limitations in ¹⁹⁰ Article 57 of the Code, was applicable to actions like the present. It cannot be. said however, in view of the decisions in French vs. O’Neale, 2 H. & McH., 401, and Keedy vs. Newcomer, 2 Md., 19, that, that question is entirely free from douht.

The annulling of this Act must also assume that it is not within the scope of legislative power to pass a law which will have the effect to revive, as between private individuals, a cause of action which was completely barred by limitations before its passage. It must be conceded that the weight of authority elsewhere sustains this proposition. Cooley’s Cons. Lim., 369.

But it is not clear that the Maryland decisions would allow of its adoption here. They have not yet gone to that extent, and what has been said by this Court in Baugher vs. Nelson, 9 Gill, 299 , would present a .serious obstacle to that result, at least so far as actions arising ex contractu are concerned. But upon this point we express no opinion for assuming this position to be sound, and that laws thus operating upon causes of action between private individuals are inoperative and void, still we are of opinion after the best consideration we have been able to give the subject, that this Act is of such a character that its validity must he sustained. Before considering what its true character is it may be well to recur briefly, to some of the well settled principles which govern Courts when dealing with grave questions of this kind.

They are always regarded as the most important that can be submitted for adjudication. It is certainly an attribute of judicial tribunals in this Country, to annul an Act of the Legislature when it is manifest that in passing it, the Legislature have violated or abused the powers granted to them by the people. But this high power is to he exercised with the most guarded circumspection and care. An Act emanating from a co-ordinate branch of the.

Government is pre ¹⁹¹ sumed to be valid, and all agree that it is incumbent upon those who assail a Statute on the ground of its invalidity, to make out a clear case of legislative usurpation. 9 Gill, 304 . The usual grounds of attack are alleged infringements of some of the express or necessarily implied inhibitions of the Constitution of the State or of the United States; but even with respect to such objections the Courts have uniformly declared they would not, in any doubtful case, pronounce an Act of the Legislature void. 15 Md., 389 ; 12 G. & J., 438 . No objection of this kind is made to the present law.' But it is said that independent of such constitutional restrictions “ there is a fundamental principle of right and justice inherent in the nature and spirit of the social compact, the character and genius of our government, the causes from which they sprang and the purposes for which they were established, that rises above, and restrains, and sets bounds to the power of legislation, which the Legislature cannot pass without exceeding its rightful authority. It is that principle which protects the life, liberty and property of the citizen from violation in the unjust exercise of legislative power.” 9 G. & J., 408 .

Extreme cases of such legislative usurpations may, and sometimes do, occur where there would be no redress for the citizen, unless there resided in the judicial Department of the Government, the power to declare them void, and where no protection could be found, save in an honest and fearless exercise of that power by the Courts. Retrospective laws which have the effect to divest parties of vested and valuable rights, are generally stated as instances of such usurpation. But it is not an easy matter to determine what the vested rights thus protected are. No clear, definite or comprehensive rule on that subject is to be found.

By the current of decisions in other States the right to plead the Statute of Limitations when it has once run and become a bar to a demand arising either ex contractu or ex ¹⁹² delicto, is treated as a vested right, beyond the reach of retrospective-legislation. In Baugher vs. Nelson, it is said “when vested rights are spoken of by the Courts, as being guarded against legislative interference, they mean those rights to which a party may adhere, and upon which he may insist without violating any principle of sound morality. There can be no vested right to do wrong. In the nature of things there can be no vested-right to violate a moral duty, or to resist the performance of a moral obligation.” In that case a retrospective law which deprived a party of the right to avoid a contract of loan by pleading in bar of the action thereon, the Statute of usury, in force at the time the loan was made and the contract created, was sustained as valid and as interfering with no vested right.

Whether there exists any well founded distinction between the right to a defence of this character, and the right to plead limitations is a question that need not now be discussed. Nor is it necessary for the purposes of this case to enter upon an enquiry into the nature and effect of limitation laws in their operation upon cases of contract and tort, whether in both they merely operate upon and affect the remedy, or in the latter, strike down and extinguish the right. Our judgment proceeds upon a different and distinct ground. All the cases to which we have been referred, or our own researches have disclosed, are suits or actions between individuals, and all the legislation declared null and void on this ground, has been such as operated directly upon and divested rights vested in private persons or private corporations.

Such is not the character or effect of the law . here assailed. It is not directed against individuals or private corporations. It applies to the counties, incorporated towns and cities of the State, and to all of"them. Between these public bodies and private citizens, there is a wide and substantial distinction, with respect to vested rights protected from ¹⁹³ legislative power.

They are public corporations created by the Legislature for political purposes, with political powers, to be exercised for purposes connected with the public good, in the administration of civil government. They are instruments of government subject at all times to the control of the Legislature with respect to their duration, powers, rights and property. It is of the essence of such a corporation, that the government has the sole right as trustee of the public interest, at its own good will and pleasure, to inspect, regulate, control and direct the corporation, its funds and franchises. These are the unquestioned general doctrines on this subject, sustained by all the authorities. 9 G. & J., 397, 401 ; 12 G. & J., 399 ; 15 Md., 462 , 490 to 492.

In the case of East Hartford vs. Hartford Bridge Co., 10 How., 534 , the Supreme Court in speaking of Towns, declares them to be “mere organizations for public purposes, liable to have their public powers, rights and duties modified or abolished at any moment by the Legislature. They are incorporated for public, and not private objects. They are allowed to hold privileges or property