Joseph Story

“ The statute of limitations of Virginia provides, that 'all actions of debt, grounded upon any lending or contract without specialty,' shall be commenced and sued within five years next after the cause of such action or suit, and not after. This being the language of the act, and confessedly governing the remedy in the courts of Virginia, the bar of five years must apply to all cases of contract, which are without specialty, or, in other words, are not founded on some instrument acknowledged as a specialty by the law of that state. ”

“ The nature, validity and interpretation of the contract may be admitted to be the same in both states; but the mode by which the remedy is to be pursued, and the time within which it is to be brought, may essentially differ. The remedy, in Virginia, must be sought within the time, and in the mode, and according to the descriptive characters of the instrument, known to the laws of Virginia, and not by the description and characters of it, prescribed in another state. An instrument may be negotiable in one state, which yet may be incapable of negotiability by the laws of another state ”

“ Hook's Administrator, 2 Randolph 303, where the court of appeals of Virginia held, in an action of debt, upon a judgment of North Carolina, brought in Virginia, that the statute of limitations of North Carolina was no bar, but that of Virginia, if applicable, governed the remedy. ”