Robert H. Jackson

“ Admittedly it is troublesome to sustain as a 'right' a claim that can find no remedy for its invasion. On the other hand, some common-law courts have regarded true statutes of limitation as doing no more than to cut off resort to the courts for enforcement of a claim. ”

“ They are practical and pragmatic devices to spare the courts from litigation of stale claims, and the citizen from being put to his defense after memories have faded, witnesses have died or disappeared, and evidence has been lost. ”

“ It is true that the Supreme Court in disposing of the first appeal relied on a companion case in which it was said that 'plaintiff must be considered to have sued 'upon a liability created by statute'.' [7] The pleadings in the companion case are not before us. No separate statement of a statutory cause of action is set out in the complaint in this case. The state court did not dispose of the liability for statutory violation as a separate cause of action by dismissal or otherwise. ”

“ Holt, adopted as a working hypothesis, as a matter of constitutional law, the view that statutes of limitation go to matters of remedy, not to destruction of fundamental rights. The abstract logic of the distinction between substantive rights and remedial or procedural rights may not be clear-cut, but it has been found a workable concept to point up the real and valid difference between rules in which stability is of prime importance and those in which flexibility is a more important value. ”

“ The Blue Sky Law imposes duties upon a seller of certain securities, but it does not expressly define a liability for their omission or create a cause of action in favor of a buyer of unregistered securities. The state courts, nevertheless, held that such an illegal sale will support a common-law action in tort. Drees v. Minnesota Petroleum Co., 189 Minn. ”

“ They have come into the law not through the judicial process but through legislation. [13] They represent a public policy about the privilege to litigate. Their shelter has never been regarded as what now is called a 'fundamental' right or what used to be called a 'natural' right of the individual. He may, of course, have the protection of the policy while it exists, but the history of pleas of limitation shows them to be good only by legislative grace and to be subject to a relatively large degree of legislative control. ”

“ Holt, so far as it applies to this case, is sound and should not be overruled. The Fourteenth Amendment does not make an act of state legislation void merely because it has some retrospective operation. What it does forbid is taking of life, liberty or property without due process of law. ”

“ Holt in legal literature. [10] But neither in volume nor in weight are they more impressive than has been directed at many decisions that deal with controlversial and recurrent issues.
Statutes of limitations always have vexed the philosophical mind for it is difficult to fit them into a completely logical and symmetrical system of law. There has been controversy as to their effect. Some are of opinion that like the analogous civil law doctrine of prescription [11] limitations statutes should be viewed as extinguishing the claim and destroying the right itself. ”