Opinion
Decided March 15, 1897.
Contract — Limiting Time for Suit — Reasonableness.
Without determining whether our statute prohibiting contracts limiting time for suit to less than two years (Rev. Stats., art. 3378) affects contracts for interstate shipment, held, refusing writ of error, that a defendant common carrier relying thereon must allege facts showing the contract to be reasonable.
PETITION FOR WRIT OF ERROR, to Court of Civil Appeals, Second District, in an appeal from Taylor County.
No briefs have reached the Reporter.
B.G. Bidwell for plaintiff in error, filed a motion for rehearing, which lie supported by written argument. The motion was overruled.
The application for the writ of error in this case is refused. In refusing it, however, we have not found it necessary to determine whether or not our statute, which prohibits stipulations in contracts limiting the time in which actions may be brought for their breach, is without effect when applied to contracts of carriers for interstate shipments. The stipulation in the contract in this case does not appear clearly to be a reasonable one, and under the authority of Railway v. Harris, 67 Tex. 166, we think that, in order for the defendant to have availed itself of the defense, it should in its answer have alleged the facts which would have shown it to be reasonable. (See also Railway v. Davis, 88 Tex. 593.) This was not done.
Writ of error refused.