Case 11. A Statute-barred Debt

A certain Titius comes to confession and asks whether he is bound to pay a debt contracted six years previously but, because of inability, not paid up to the present, nor meanwhile demanded by the creditor because of the latter’s kindness. Hence it is asked:

1. Upon what things do the force and obligation of a law depend?

2. Can civil law impede or even remove a natural obligation?

3. Let it be proved what the laws which are called Statutes of Limitation effect.

4. What is to be said concerning the case?

1. On what does the binding force of a law depend?

The binding force of a law depends partly on the matter of the law, but chiefly on the intention of the lawgiver. It depends partly on the matter, for a human lawgiver can not impose a grave obligation in matter which is altogether trivial. Such a thing would be against reason, and law is a reasonable ordinance. But the lawgiver is not bound to impose a serious obligation whenever the matter is serious. He may if he likes and if he thinks it will be for the common good impose a light obligation under pain of venial sin, or he may be satisfied with a penal obligation to submit to the penalty prescribed for violation of the law, and not bind under pain of even venial sin.¹

1 St. Alphonsus, book i, treatise 2, nos. 140–143.

2. Can civil or municipal law prevent a natural obligation arising or take it away?

The civil law can not impose an obligation which is contrary to the natural law, for there can be no obligation to do what is wrong. But civil law for the common good can lay down prescriptions and conditions to be observed in order that rights may be acquired, and thus it can prevent acts from having their natural effects through want of formalities required by law, and in certain cases it can even take away rights and consequent obligations. Thus the formalities required by law for the validity of a will prevent obligations arising from an informal will though they would arise if the law did not exist; and the law of prescription takes away rights from one person with their corresponding obligations and transfers them to another.

3. Show what effect the Statutes of Limitation have in English law.

The Statutes of Limitation fix a certain time within which an action must be enforced according to English law. There are many of them, and they fix various limits of time for different actions. For the purposes of this case it will be sufficient to mention the Real Property Limitation Act of 1833 and that of 1874, which prescribe a period of twelve years within which actions must be brought to recover land or rent other than land or rent belonging to spiritual and eleemosynary corporations sole, and land belonging to the Crown. On the expiration of the prescribed period of limitation not only is the remedy by action barred, but the title of the persons against whom the statute has run is extinguished.¹ From what was said above it is clear that this extinguishing of the right is not beyond the powers, and that it is efficacious both in the external forum and in that of conscience.¹ The Limitation Act, 1623, as amended by subsequent statutes, prescribes a period of six years within which an action for debt grounded upon any lending or contract without specialty must be brought. The effect of this law can not be greater than was intended by the legislature and than the practice of the courts and expert opinion assign to it. Judged by these standards there can be no doubt as to what the effect of the law is. It merely bars the remedy; it does not extinguish the right.

1 Encyclopedia of Laws, under the word “Limitations (Statutes of).”

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. i, p. 380.

Sir F. Pollock says: “Now there is nothing in these statutes to extinguish an obligation once created. The party who neglects to enforce his right by action can not insist upon so enforcing it after a certain time. But the right itself is not gone. . . . Although the creditor can not enforce payment by direct process of law, he is not the less entitled to use any other means of obtaining it which he might lawfully have used before.”²

2 Principles of Contract, p. 599.

4. The case. It will be clear from what has been said that Titius is bound to pay the statute-barred debt. The obligation remains unless it has been taken away. No other way in which the obligation could have ceased is suggested in the case except the operation of the Statute of Limitation. This certainly does not take away the obligation.³

3 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. i, p. 126.