Definition
Sex annos (Latin: "six years") is a shorthand name for the common law plea of the statute of limitations in actions of assumpsit. The full Latin formula from which the term derives is *non assumpsit infra sex annos* — "he did not promise within six years" — which was the emphatic language used in the formal plea denying that a contractual promise or obligation arose within the six-year limitations period. Over time, "sex annos" became the conventional label by which practitioners and pleaders identified the limitations defense in actions on simple contracts.
The plea operated as a procedural bar: where a plaintiff brought an action in assumpsit and the defendant wished to raise the statute of limitations, the prescribed form of plea incorporated the phrase *non assumpsit infra sex annos*, asserting that no actionable promise had been made within six years preceding the suit. Because the emphatic words of the plea were so distinctive and the defense so commonly invoked, "sex annos" came to name the plea itself.
Common Confusion
Sex annos is sometimes encountered in indexes or digests adjacent to *non assumpsit*, which is a separate plea denying that any promise was ever made (a general denial on the merits), as opposed to sex annos, which admits or bypasses the question of the promise and asserts instead that the action is time-barred. The two pleas operated on entirely different grounds and could be pleaded together. Conflating them produces a misreading of the historical record.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in pre-modern common law pleading materials and treatises on the forms of action. Researchers working with historical English or early American pleading records — particularly in assumpsit — will encounter sex annos as a recognized shorthand in both precedent books and court records. It is not a term of modern practice; statutes of limitations are now raised by motion or affirmative defense under modern procedural codes, with no requirement to invoke Latin formulae.
The principal research trap is encountering the term in isolation in a historical document or digest without recognizing it as a limitations plea. A reader unfamiliar with the old forms might mistake "sex annos" for a reference to a substantive legal doctrine rather than a procedural defense name. The full context is always *non assumpsit infra sex annos*, and that complete phrase is the proper entry point for understanding the doctrine.
Researchers tracing the history of statutes of limitations in contract law will find sex annos relevant as an artifact of the Statute of Limitations 1623 (21 Jac. 1, c. 16), which established the six-year period for simple contract actions in English law. American jurisdictions adopted comparable periods in their own limitations statutes, and the old plea forms persisted in early American practice even after the substantive statute had been localized.
The term is of no practical use in researching modern limitations law, but it is a reliable marker in historical pleading sources that a limitations defense is being invoked in a contract action.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the most complete account, identifying sex annos as the "emphatic words of the old plea of the statute of limitations, literally translated in the modern forms, and retained as the distinctive name of the plea," with a cross-reference to *non assumpsit infra sex annos* and a citation to Chitty on Pleading (3 Chitt. Pl. 941). This is consistent with the practice described in Chitty's treatise, which was the leading English authority on common law pleading forms in the early nineteenth century.
Black's entry is fragmentary in the source material provided, suggesting the term received only abbreviated treatment — likely because by the time Black's mature editions were compiled, the old plea forms had been substantially displaced by reformed pleading practice in both England (following the Common Law Procedure Acts) and America (following Field Code adoption in many states). Burrill, writing closer to the living practice of common law pleading, gives the more informative account.
Neither dictionary addresses the procedural mechanics of how the plea was defeated or how courts evaluated the running of the limitations period — for that, practitioners historically turned to Chitty and to the specific limitations statutes in force in their jurisdiction.