Sect. 2. If any defendant or defendants, in any action on any simple contract, shall plead any matter in abatement to the effect that any other person or persons ought to he jointly sued and issue be joined on such plea ; and it shall appear at the trial that the action could not by reason of the said re cited acts, or of this act, or of either of them, be maintained against the other person or persons named in such plea, or any of them, the issue joined on such plea shall be found against the party pleading the same.
Sect. 3. No indorsement or memorandum of any payment written or made after the time appointed for this act to take effect upon any promissory note, bill of exchange, or other writing, by or on the behalf of the party to whom such payment shall be made, shall be deemed sufficient proof of such pay ment, so as to take the case out of the opera tion of either of the said statutes.
Sect. 4. That the said recited act, and this act, shall be deemed and taken to apply to the case of any debt on shnple contract alleged by way of set-off on the part of any defendant, either by plea, notice, or other wise.
91. Statute 3 &4 Will. IT e. 27. Section 1. The time within. which actions to recover reality, etc. must be brought, is regulated by the statute 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27. By the first section of the act the meaning of the words in the act is defined ; it enacts, inter all' a, that the word " land" shall extend to manors, messuages, and all other corporeal heredita ments whatsoever, and also to tithes (other than tithes belonging to a spiritual or elee mosynary corporation sole), and also to any share or interest in them, whether the same be a freehold or chattel interest, and whether they be of freehold, copyhold, or any other tenure ; and that the word " rent" shall ex tend to all heriots, services, and suits for which a distress may be made, and to annui ties charged upon land (except modusses or compositions belonging to a spirztual or elee mosynary corporation sole), and that the word "person" shall extend ,to a body politic, cor porate, or collegiate, and to a class of credit ors or other persons, as well as to an indi vidual ; and that t'he singular number shall embrace the plural, and the masculine gen der the feminine.
- — Section 2 enacts that after the 31st day of December, 1833, no person shall make an entry or distress, or bring an action to recover any land or rent, but within twenty years next after the time at which the right to make such entry or distress or to bring such action, shall have first accrued.
Sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, define the period from which the statute begins to run (where a party is not under disability), which may be thus briefly stated : viz., where the
claimant was, in respect of the estate or interest claimed, himself once in possession or claims through a party wbo was once in possession of the property or in receipt of the rents or profits, the statute runs from the time when he was dispossessed, or discon tinued such possession or receipts.
Where the claimant claims on the death of one who died in possession of the land or receipt of the rents or profits thereof, the statute runs from the time of the death, and this even in the case of an administrator, by section 6, which see, post.
Where the claimant derives his right under any instrument (other than a will), the statute runs from the time when under the instrument he was entitled to the possession.
In the case of remainders or reversions, the statute runs from the time when the re mainder or reversion becomes an estate in possession.
Where the claimant claims by reason of a forfeiture or breach of condition, the statute runs from the time of the forfeiture incurred or breach of condition broken.
But section 4 provides that when any right to make any entry or distress, or to bring any action to recover any land or rent, by reason of any fozleiture or breach of condition, shall have first accrued in respect of any estate or interest in reversion or rernainder, and the land or rent shall not have been recovered by virtue of such right, the right to make an entry or distress, or bring an action to recover such land or rent, shall be deemed to have first accrued in respect of such estate or interest , at the time when the same shall have become an estate or interest in possession, as if no such forfeiture or breach of condition had. happened.
And by section 8 it is provided that a right to rnake an entry or distress, or to bring an action to recover any land or rent, shall be deemed to have first accrued in respect of an estate or interest in reversion at the time at which the same shall have become an estate or interest in possession by the determi nation of any estate or estates in respect of which such land shall have been held, or the profits thereof, or such rent shall have been received, notwithstanding the person claim ing such land, or some person through whom he claims, shall, at any time previously to the creation of the estate or estates which shall have determined, have been in possession or receipt of the profits of such land, or in re. ceipt of such rent.