The statute of limitations in force in the District of Columbia is the statute of Maryland, which, so far as applicable to this case, closely follows the language of the English statute, (21 Jac. I, c. 16, § 3,) but bars an action on a promissory note or other simple contract in three years after the cause of action accrues. St. Md. 1715, 1 Kilty, Laws, c. 23, § 2; Laws D. C. 1868, p. 284. The promissory notes sued on were payable respectively on March 10, 1875, and March 10, 1876, and the action was brought March 11, 1880. The question is therefore whether the instrument signed by the defendant on June 21, 1877, is evidence of a sufficient acknowledgment or promise to take the case out of the statute.
The principles of law by which this case is to be governed are clearly settled by a series of decisions of this court. The statute of limitations is to be upheld and enforced, not as resting only on a presumption of payment from lapse of time, but, according to its intent and object, as a statute of repose. The original debt, indeed, is a sufficient legal consideration for a subsequent new promise to pay it, made either before or after the bar of the statute is complete. But in order to continue or to revive the cause of action, after it would otherwise have been barred by the statute, there must be either an express promise of the debtor to pay that debt, or else an express acknowledgment of the debt, from which his promise to pay it may be inferred. A mere asknowledgment, though in writing, of the debt as having once existed, is not sufficient to raise an implication of such a new promise. To have this effect, there must be a distinct and unequivocal acknowledgment of the debt as still subsisting as a personal obligation of the debtor.
In King v. Riddle, 7 Cranch, 168, a deed dated July 15, 1804, by which the defendant recited that certain persons had become his sureties for a certain debt, and had paid it, and that he was desirous to secure them as far as he could, and assigned to one of them certain bonds in trust to collect the money and distribute it equally among them, was admitted in evidence in an action by one of them against him for money paid, to take the case out of the statute of limitations of Virginia. The exact form of the deed is not stated in the report, but that it expressly recognized the debt to the plaintiff to be still due is evident from the opinion, in which Chief Justice MARSHALL said: 'Although the court is not willing to extend the effect of casual or accidental expressions further than it has been, to take a case out of that statute, and although the court might be of opinion that the cases on that point have gone too far, yet this is not a casual or incautious expression. The deed admits the debt to be due on the fifteenth of July, 1804, and five years had not afterwards elapsed before the suit was brought.' 7 Cranch, 171.
In Clementson v. Williams, 8 Cranch, 72, in an action on an account against two partners, one of whom only was served with process, a previous statement of the other, upon the account being presented to him, 'that the said account was due, and that he supposed it had been paid y the defendant, but had not paid it himself, and did not know of its being ever paid,' was held insufficient to take the account out of the statute; and Chief Justice MARSHALL said: 'The statute of limitations is entitled to the same respect with other statutes, and ought not to be explained away. In this case there is no promise, conditional or unconditional; but a simple acknowledgment. This acknowledgment goes to the original justice of the account. But this is not enough. The statute of limitations was not enacted to protect persons from claims fictitious in their origin, but from ancient claims, whether well or ill founded, which may have been discharged, but the evidence of discharge may be lost. It is not then sufficient to take the case out of the act that the claim should be proved or be acknowledged to have been originally just; the acknowledgment must go to the fact that it is still due.' 8 Cranch, 74.