CONFLICT OF LAWS - STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS - APPLICABILITY

Authors

Abstract

Goods, shipped from France on a vessel of the French line, were damaged by seawater. The bills of lading were issued in France, containing a clause that litigation or disputes arising from their interpretation or execution should be judged according to French law. When the holders of the bills libeled the French line, they were met with the defense that the French Code allowed suit on such claims only if within one year after the ship arrived, which period had passed. Section 433 of the French Commercial Code, to the effect that such claims were barred by a one-year prescription (statute of limitations); section 1234 of the Civil Code, that obligations are discharged or extinguished (s'eteignent) by prescription; sec. 2220, that prescription which has been acquired may be waived or renounced; and sec. 2223, forbidding judges on their own motion to base decisions on prescription and requiring the parties to raise this defense, were put into evidence, as well as rather confusing expert testimony. The federal district court, holding that this one-year period of prescription should not prevent action in our courts, decided for the libelants, 32 F.(2d) 283. On appeal, affirmed, and held that on the record in the case the respondent had not shown that the French law of prescription so extinguished the right as to prevent action in our courts. Wood and Sellick v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique; A. Salomon v. Same (C. C. A. 2d, 1930) 43 F.(2d) 941.

Recommended Citation

CONFLICT OF LAWS - STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS - APPLICABILITY, 29 Mich. L. Rev. 776 (1931).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol29/iss6/20