The statement that Law of Limitation is arbitrary and inequitable does not appear to be correct. Statutes of limitation are statutes of repose to quiet title, to suppress fraud, and to supply the deficient of proofs arising from ambiguity and obscurity or the antiquity of transactions.
They proceed upon the presumption that claims are extinguished or ought to be held extinguished whenever they are not litigated within the prescribed period. They quicken diligence by making it in some measure equivalent to right.
They discourage litigation by burying in one common receptacle all the accumulation of past times which are unexplained and have now from laspe of time become inexplicable. All statutes of limitation have for their object the prevention of the rearing up of claims at great distances of time when evidences are lost and in all well regulated countries the quieting of possession is held as an important point of policy.
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ADVERTISEMENTS:
The public has a great interest in having a known limit fixed by law to litigation, for the quiet of the community, and there may be a: certain fixed period, after which the possessor may know that his title and right cannot be called in question.
It is better that the negligent owner, who has omitted to assert his title and right within the prescribed period, should loss his right, than an opening should be given to interminable litigation exposing parties to be harassed by the stale demands, after the witnesses of the facts are dead, and the evidence of the title lost.
Statutes of limitation are definite rules of law giving to the population for whose benefit they have been framed a guarantee that after the lapse of a certain period they may rest in peace and rely upon titles or other rights which they have acquired.