The general theory on which an action is maintained upon a cause which accrued in another jurisdiction is that the liability is an obligatio, which, having been attached to the person by the law then having that person within its power, will be treated by other countries as accompanying the person when brought before their courts. But, as the source of the obligation is the foreign law, the defendant, generally speaking, is entitled to the benefit of whatever conditions and limitations the foreign law creates. Slater v. Mexican Nat. R. Co. 194 U.S. 120, ante, p. 581, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 581. It is true that this general proposition is qualified by the fact that the ordinary limitations of actions are treated as laws of procedure, and as belonging to the lex fori, as affecting the remedy only, and not the right. But in cases where it has been possible to escape from that qualification by a reasonable distinction, courts have been willing to treat limitations of time as standing like other limitations, and cutting down the defendant's liability wherever he is sued. The common case is where a statute creates a new liability, and in the same section or in the same act limits the time within which it can be enforced, whether using words of condition or not. The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 199, 30 L. ed. 358. But the fact that the limitation is contained in the same section or the same statute is material only as bearing on construction. It is merely a ground for saying that the limitation goes to the right created, and accompanies the obligation everywhere. The same conclusion would be reached if the limitation was in a different statute, provided it was directed to the newly created liability so specifically as to warrant saying that it qualified the right.
If, then, the only question were one of construction and as to liabilities subsequently incurred, it would be a comparatively easy matter to say that § 554 of the Montana Code of Civil Procedure qualifies the liability imposed upon directors by § 451 of the Civil Code, and creates a condition to the corresponding right of action against them, which goes with it into any jurisdiction where the action may be brought. But the question certified raises greater difficulties both as to construction and as to power. We have first to consider whether § 554 purports to qualify, or to impose a condition upon, liabilities already incurred under the earlier act taken up into § 451. In doing so we assume that the word 'directors' in the later act means the same as 'trustees' in the earlier one. The contrary was not suggested. At the argument we were pressed with § 3455 of the Code of Civil Procedure: 'No action or proceeding commenced before this Code takes effect, and no right accrued, is affected by its provisions.' But the trouble made by this is more seeming than real. The following section deals specifically with limitations, and must be taken to override a merely general precaution against the disturbance of vested rights.
By § 3456: 'When a limitation or period of time prescribed in any existing statute for acquiring a right or barring a remedy, or for any other purpose, has begun to run before this Code goes into effect, and the same or any limitation is prescribed in this Code, the time which has already run shall be deemed part of the time prescribed as such limitation by this Code.' The language clearly imports that the limitations in the Code are to apply to existing obligations upon which the previous limitation already had begun to run. The result is that § 554 purports to substitute a three years' limitation for the one year previously in force, assuming that the previous one year limitation applied to this case, as, under the decisions, it did. State Sav. Bank v. Johnson, 18 Mont. 440, 33 L. R. A. 552, 56 Am. St. Rep. 591, 45 Pac. 662; National Park Bank v. Remsen, 158 U.S. 337, 342, 39 L. ed. 1008, 1009, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 891. But if § 554 purported to make this substitution, it purported to introduce important changes. It lengthened the time on the one hand, but it took away the exception in case of absence from the state on the other. This last is disputed, but it seems to us a part of the meaning of the words 'This title does not affect actions against directors,' etc. The section as to absence from the state is a part of the title, and whatever necessary exceptions may be made from the generality of the words quoted, this is not one of them.