## Facts

- Charles Theis executed four promissory notes on April 2, 1888, payable to I.D. West in Kansas; both parties lived in Kansas and payment was to be made there.
- Theis paid two notes but did not pay the remaining two.
- Before any Kansas limitations period had run, Theis moved from Kansas to Washington, lived there for more than six years, and later moved to Idaho.
- On May 10, 1906, Jennie West (widow and successor to the payee) sued Theis in Idaho to collect on the two unpaid notes.
- Theis admitted executing the notes but asserted that Washington’s six-year limitation period barred the claim and that Idaho’s borrowing statute (Rev. Stat. Idaho § 4079) required Idaho to apply that bar.

## Issues

1. Whether Idaho’s borrowing statute required application of Washington’s statute of limitations to bar an Idaho action on promissory notes executed and payable in Kansas when the defendant later resided in Washington long enough for Washington’s limitation period to run.
2. Whether the claim was “barred” in Washington within the meaning of Idaho’s borrowing statute, given that the cause of action arose in Kansas.

## Decision

- The Idaho Supreme Court reversed the judgment for the defendant and remanded.
- The court held that Washington’s statute of limitations did not bar the action within the meaning of Idaho’s borrowing statute.
- Idaho’s borrowing statute did not prevent the plaintiff from maintaining the action in Idaho on the unpaid Kansas notes.

## Legal Principles

- When a state adopts a statute from another jurisdiction, it is presumed to adopt the settled judicial construction previously placed on that statute.
- Idaho’s borrowing statute applies only when the cause of action arose in the foreign jurisdiction and the foreign jurisdiction’s courts are barred from granting a remedy on that cause of action due to lapse of time.
- A defendant’s mere residence in another state, and the running of that state’s limitation period during that residence, does not trigger Idaho’s borrowing statute for a claim arising elsewhere.
- For borrowing-statute purposes, the relevant “bar” is a time bar applicable to the cause of action in the jurisdiction where it arose, not a limitation period incidentally available because the defendant resided in a different state.

## Conclusion

Because the notes were made and payable in Kansas and the cause of action arose there, Idaho’s borrowing statute did not import Washington’s limitations period merely due to the defendant’s later Washington residence; the trial court’s limitations judgment was reversed and the case was remanded.


West v. Theis, 15 Idaho 167, 96 P. 932 (Idaho 1908)