LIMITATIONS.
The following table gives the time an account or instrument of writing,
(note, judgment, etc.) will survive before becoming "out-lawed" by the
statutes of limitations in the several states.
Open account Note Judgment
years years years
Alabama 3 6 20
Alaska 6 10
Arizona 3
Arkansas 3 10
California 4 4 5
Colorado 6 6 6
Connecticut 6 17[1]
Delaware 3 6
Florida 3 5 20
Georgia 10 6 7
Hawaii 6 6 20
Idaho 4 5 6
Illinois 5 10 10[2]
Indiana 6 10 20
Iowa 5 10 20
Kansas 3 5 5[3]
Kentucky 5 5 15
Louisiana 3 5 10
Massachusetts 6 20 20
Michigan 6 10
Minnesota 6 6 10
Mississippi 3 6 7
Missouri 10
Montana 6
Nebraska 4 5
Nevada 3 4 6
New Hampshire 20
New Jersey 20
New Mexico 4 6 7
New York 10 20
North Carolina 3 3 10
North Dakota 6 6
Ohio 6 6 15
Oklahoma 3 5
Oregon 6 6 10
Pennsylvania 6 6 20[4]
Rhode Island 6 20 20
South Carolina 6 6 20
South Dakota 6 6 20[5]
Tennessee 6 10[6]
Texas 2 4 10
Utah 4 6 8
Vermont
Virginia 2 5 10
Washington 6 6
West Virginia 5 5 10
Wisconsin 6 10 20
British Columbia[7]
Manitoba 6 10
Wyoming 8 5 10
New Brunswick 6 6 20
Nova Scotia 6 20
Ontario 6 10
Quebec 5[8] 5
Mexico 1 3
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Promissory note not negotiable.
[2] Justice Court. Court of Record, 20 years.
[3] Judgment may be kept alive by issuing execution every five years.
[4] May be revived by proof of non-payment.
[5] If judgment is from any other state, 10 years.
[6] "Where the statute of limitations of another State or government has
created a bar to an action upon a cause accruing therein, while the
party to be charged was a resident in such State or under such
government, the bar is equally effectual in this State." (Code (M. & V.)
Sec. 3481.)
[7] "All actions for debt upon any recognizance, shall be commenced
within twenty years after the cause of action arose."
[8] "Surgeon's, physician's and dentist's accounts dating from the time
the services or medicine is supplied."
This table is as near complete as we are able to make it at this time.
The laws are changed frequently. This is accurate enough to enable any
physician to look over his books and find what per cent. of his accounts
have outlawed by his failure to enforce payment.
Remember that a payment, however small it may be, will revive an
account, even after it has become outlawed. Hence the advisability of
getting small payments at every opportunity. These payments should be
less than one year apart, as some States do not consider payments made
over one year apart.
Under the Oklahoma law a foreign judgment is limited to one year. In
West Virginia a foreign judgment against a person who has been a
resident of the State for ten years is barred.
A similar clause to the following, taken from the laws of the State of
Washington, is incorporated in the acts of nearly all States, and may be
considered as a general rule:
"In an action brought to recover a balance due upon a mutual, open and
current account, where there have been reciprocal demands, the cause of
action shall be deemed to have accrued from the time of the last item of
the account proved on either side, but when more than one year shall
have intervened between any of a series of items, they are not to be
deemed such an account."
Thus, if you do practice for a person, and a year elapses and you again
attend him, you cannot combine the two as one account, and enforce
collection by law.