The opinion of the court was delivered by
This is an action upon a judgment. Service of the summons and complaint was made, default of the respondent was noted and judgment entered against him on August 23, 1897. Thereafter respondent moved to set aside the default and judgment entered against him, which motion was sustained. It is stipulated that the respondent has no defense to the action other than the act of the legislature of 1897, approved March 6, 1897 (Laws 1897, p. 52; Bal. Code, §§ 5148-5150), entitled, “ An act relating to the duration of judgments and repealing sections 462 and 463, volume 2, Hill’s Code of Washington.” The act is as follows:
Page 208“ Section 1. After the expiration of six years from the rendition of any judgment it shall cease to be a lien or charge against the estate or person of the judgment debtor.
“ Sec. 2. ISTo suit, action, or other proceedings shall ever be had on any judgment rendered in the State of Washington by which the lien or duration of such judgment, claim or demand, shall be extended or continued in force for any greater or longer period than six years from the date of the entry of the original judgment.
“ Sec. 3. When the lien of any judgment, as specified in section 1 of this act, has run six years, or its duration will be less than one year by reason of this act, then the lien of such judgment shall continue for one year from and after the taking effect of this act.
“ Sec. 4. Sections 462 and 463 of volume 2, Hill’s Code of Washington, relating to a renewal of judgments, are hereby repealed.”
And it is claimed that the act is unconstitutional as applied to judgments in existence at the time of the passage of the act. It is also contended by the appellant that the title of this act is not sufficient in that it embraces more than one subject, and the subject is not expressed in the title of the act. We do not think there is any substantial merit in this objection. In presenting our views in relation to the constitutionality of the act, it is not necessary to pass upon the other objections raised by the appellant. It is contended by the appellant that the application of this law to judgments already in existence is violative of § 10 of art. 1 of the constitution of the United States, and of § 23 of' art. 1 of the constitution of the state of Washington, in that it is a law which impairs the obligation of contracts; and of art. 5, and of § 1 of art. 14 of the constitution of the United States, and of § 3 of art. 1 of the constitution of the state of Washington, in that it would deprive the appellant of his property without due process of law. We-think that in any event, as applied to contracts existing at.
• “ The right to reimbursement for damages caused bv a mob or riotous assemblage of people is not founded upon .any contract between the city and the sufferers. Its liability for the damages is created by a law of the legislature, and can be withdrawn or limited at its pleasure. Municipal corporations are instrumentalities of the state for the convenient administration of government within their limits. They are invested with authority to establish, a police to guard against disturbance; and it is their duty to exercise their authority so as to prevent violence from any cause, and particularly from mobs and riotous assemblages. It has, therefore, been generally considered as a just burden cast upon them to require them to make good any loss sustained from the acts of such assemblages which they should have repressed. . . . But, however considered, the imposition is simply a measure of legislative policy, in no respect resting upon contract, and subject, like all other measures of policy, to any change the legislature may see tit to make, either in the extent of the liability or in thePage 212means of its enforcement. And its character is not at all changed by the fact that the amount of loss, in pecuniary estimation, has been ascertained and established by the judgments rendered. The obligation to make indemnity created by the statute has no more element of contract in it because merged in the judgments than it had previously.”
And this was the sole ground upon which this case was decided. And as showing conclusively that a contractual relation would have compelled a different decision from this the opinion proceeds:
“ The cases in which we have held that the taxing power of a municipality continues, notwithstanding a legislative act of limitation or repeal, are founded upon contracts; and decisions in them do not rest upon the principle that the party affected in the enforcement of his contract rights has been thereby deprived of any property, but upon the principle that the remedies for the enforcement of his contracts existing when they were made have been by such legislation impaired. The usual mode in which municipal bodies meet their pecuniary contracts is by taxation. And when, upon the faith that such taxation will be levied, contracts have been made, the constitutional inhibition has been held to restrain the state from repealing or diminishing the power of the corporation so as to deprive the holder of the contract of all adequate and efficacious remedy.”
And the court cites approvingly the cases of Wolff v. New Orleans, 103 U. S. 358, and Louisiana v. Pilsbury, 105 U. S. 278, saying:
“ In both cases by the unanimous judgment of the court, the legislation in that respect is subject to this qualification which attends all state legislation, that it ‘shall not conflict with the prohibitions of the constitution of the United States, and, among other things, shall not operate directly upon contracts of the corporation, so as to impair their obligation by abrogating or lessening the means of their enforcement. Legislation producing this latter result, not indirectly as a consequence of legitimate measuresPage 213taken, as will sometimes happen, but directly by operating upon those means, is prohibited by the constitution, and must be disregarded — treated as if never enacted — by all courts recognizing the constitution as the paramount law of the land. This doctrine has been repeatedly asserted by this court when attempts have been made to limit the power of taxation of a municipal body, upon the faith of which contracts have been made, and by means of which alone they could be performed.”
Justice Bbadley, in his concurring opinion, makes it especially clear that he concurred in the opinion simply upon the ground that
“ Remedies against municipal bodies for damages caused by mobs, or other violaters of law unconnected with the municipal government, are purely matters of legislative policy, depending on positive law, which may at any time be repealed or modified, either before or after the damage has occurred, and the repeal of which causes the remedy to cease.”
“ But,” said he, “ an ordinary judgment of damages for a tort, rendered against the person committing it, in favor of the person injured, stands upon a very different footing. Such a judgment is founded upon an absolute right, and is as much an article of property as anything else that a party owns; and the legislature can no more violate it without due process of law, than it can any other property. To abrogate the remedy for enforcing it, and to give no other adequate remedy in its stead, is to deprive the owner of his property within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The remedy for enforcing a judgment is the life of a judgment, just as much as the remedy for enforcing a contract is the life of the contract.”
So it will be seen from these cases, which are the principal and most pertinent cases cited on this question, not only by the opinions of the court, but also by the dissenting opinions in each case, that it was not the intention of the supreme court to lay down the rule that the destruction of a judgment in which a contract was merged by the legisla
"Whatever belongs merely to the remedy may be altered according to the will of the state, provided the alteration doe's not impair the obligation of the contract. But if that effect is produced, it is immaterial whether it is done by acting on the remedy or directly on the contract itself. In either case it is prohibited by the constitution;”
citing, also, McCracken v. Hayward, 2 How. 608, where it was said:
“ The obligation of a contract consists in its binding force on the party who makes it. This depends on the laws in existence when it is made. These are necessarily referred to in all contracts, and forming a part of them as the measure of the obligation to perform them by the one party, .and the right acquired by the other. There can be no> other standard by which to ascertain the extent of either than that which the terms of the contract indicate, according to their settled legal meaning. When it becomes consummated, the law defines the duty and the right, compels one party to perform the thing contracted for, and gives the other a right to enforce the performance by the remedies then in force. If any subsequent law affect to- diminish the duty, or to impair the right, it necessarily bears on the obligation of the contract, in favor of one party to tire injury of the other; hence any law, which in its operation amounts toPage 215a denial or obstruction of the rights accruing' by a contract, though professing to act only on the remedy, is directly obnoxious to the prohibition of the constitution.”
And as showing the construction which must have been placed by the court itself on the opinion in Louisiana v. Mayor, supra, the court in this case quotes approvingly the case of Seibert v. Lewis, 122 U. S. 284 (7 Sup. Ct. 1190), where it was announced that it was the settled doctrine of the court that:
“ ‘ The remedy subsisting in a state, when and where the contract is made and is to be performed, is a part of its obligation, and any subsequent law of the state which so affects that remedy as substantially to impair and lessen the value of the contract is forbidden by the. constitution, and is therefore void,’ ”
and that the legislature of Missouri having, by act of March 23, 1868, to facilitate the construction of railroads, enacted that the county courts should levy and cause to be collected in the same manner as county taxes a special tax in order to pay the interest and principal of any bond which might be issued by a municipal corporation in the state on account of the subscription authorized by the act to the stock of the railroad company, which tax should be levied on all the real estate within the township, making the subscription in accordance with the valuation then last made by the county assessors for county purposes, it must be held that it was a material part of this contract that such creditor should always have the right to the special tax to be levied and collected in the same manner as county taxes at the same time might be levied and collected. Here the action of the party came into effect. He entered into this contract on the strength of the law of the state of Missouri, and, having entered into it with reference to that law, the supreme court will not allow the state to pass any law which impairs that
“ The obligation of a contract, in the constitutional sense, is the means provided by law by which it can be enforced— by which the parties can be obliged to perform it. Whatever legislation lessens the efficacy of these means impairs the obligation. If it tend to postpone or retard the enforcement of the contract, the obligation of the latter is to that extent weakened.”
The language of the learned judge might well be applied in the interest of the appellant in this case. The means provided by the law for the enforcement of the contract at the time the contract was made and by which it could be enforced has been taken away by the legislature. The action of the legislature has not only tended to lessen the efficacy of the means which then existed, it has not only tended to retard the enforcement of the contract, but it has destroyed the means of its enforcement altogether, and has supplied no other means in its stead. It is the contention of the respondent, however, and indeed that is his main contention, that this act of the legislature is a statute of limitation in effect, and numerous cases are cited where statutes of limitation have been sustained, but we think there is a vast difference between the act in question here and the acts which were construed in the cases cited by respondent. The governing principle in this case is altogether different from the principle underlying statutes of limitation. Statutes of limitation are statutes of repose, intended to put at rest controverted questions of fact, to insure to a degree certainty in testimony by compelling its production before it is affected by the infirmities of memory, thereby giving value to contracts. Such statutes are in the interests of morals, serving to prevent perjuries, frauds and mistakes, hence they subserve public interests and fall with
• The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded, with instructions to overrule the motion to- set aside the default and judgment.
Soott, C. J.; and Axdeks, J., concur.