Statutes of limitations rules cut off liability after so many number of years. If someone has been wronged, they only have a limited amount of time to bring their claim before the claim is dead forever.
Adverse possession rules (aka 'prescription') grant new property rights to a person that has been using/possessing property openly, continuously, exclusively (though there are variations), and adversely (variations here too) for a certain number of years. For example, that land in Colorado that seemed like a great purchase 30 years ago but you never ended up using it? Yeah, it may now belong to a local man that has been squatting on it for the last 29....
OLLIE WENDELL JR...
Oliver Wendell Holmes raises some interesting points in, "The Path of Law", 10 Harvard Law Review 457 (1897). THE ISSUE: when justifying cutting off a person's rights in order to grant rights to another, do you use reasons surrounding the point of view of the rights-gaininer or the rights-loser?
We have too little theory in the law rather than too much, especially on this final branch of study...Let me now give an example to show the practical imporance, for the decision of actual cases, of understanding the reasons of the law, by taking an example from rules which, so far as I know, never have been explained or theorized about in any adequate way. I refer to the statues of limitations and the law of prescription. The end of such rules is obvious, but what is the justification for depriving a man of his rights, a pure evil as far as it goes, in consequence of the lapse of time? Sometimes the loss of evidence is referred to, but that is a secondary matter. Sometimes the desireability of peace, but why is peace more desireable after twenty years than before? It is increasingly likely to come without the aid of legislation. Sometimes it is said that, if a man neglects to enforce his rights, he cannot complain if, after a while, the law follows his example. Now if this is all that can be said about it, you probably will decide a case I am going to put, for the defendant. A man is sued for trespass upon land, and justifies under a right of way. He proves that he has used the way openly and adversely for twenty years, but it turns out that the plaintiff had granted a license to a person whom he reasonably supposed to be the defendant's agent, although not so in fact, and therefore had assumed that the use of the way was permissive, in which case no right would be gained. Has the defendant gained a right or not? If his gaining it stands on the fault and neglect of the landowner in the ordinary sense, as seems commonly to be supposed, there has been no such neglect, and suggest that the foundation of the acquisition of rights by lapse of time is to be looked for in the position of the person who gains them, not that of the loser....It is in the nature of man's mind. A thing which you have enjoyed and used as your own for a long time, whether property or an opinion, takes root in your being and cannot be torn away without your resenting the act and trying to defend yourself, however you came by it. The law can ask no better justification than the deepest instincts of man. It is only by way of reply to the suggestion that you are disappointing the former owner, that you refer to his neglect having allowed the gradual dissociation between himself and what he claims, and the gradual association of it with another. If he knows that another is doing acts which on their face show that he is on the way toward establishing such an association, I should argue that in justice to that other he was bound at his peril to find out whether the other was acting under his permission, to see that he was warned, and, if necessary, stopped.
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