Bigelow v. Walraven

My colleague, Mr. Justice Thomas Giles Kavanagh, would hold that a trial judge may condition an order setting aside a default, entered following defendant’s failure to answer a complaint, on defendant not pleading the statute of limitations.

He states that a condition depriving defendant of the defense of the statute of limitations is not "wholly arbitrary and unreasonable” because the statute of limitations itself establishes an arbitrary deadline; a trial judge does not act arbitrarily or unreasonably in relieving a plaintiff of a failure to meet an "arbitrarily established deadline” so that…