Is a third party beneficiary entitled to claim the statute of limitations when the beneficiary has not yet signed the contract?

would still be in exactly as good a position as his own contract originally put him. The law giveth and the law taketh away. The 'unexpected grace' is nullified by the unexpected limitation." (9 Corbin on Contracts (Interim ed. 1979) 820, p. 249.) The court, however, failed to quote a prior statement on the same page of that edition which criticized an older view that the statute of limitations did not begin to run until the beneficiary had assented to the contract, citing More v. Hutchinson (1922) 187 Cal. 623. That criticism is followed by: "It could be justified in some degree on the theory that the statute should not be allowed to operate against one until he has had a reasonable chance to know that his right exists." (9 Corbin, supra, 820 at p. 249.) If knowledge of the claim is when an action accrues, to ignore the lack of knowledge by the plaintiff just because it is a third party beneficiary makes little sense.

The question as to whether a clause is a contract that "is not intended to inure to the benefit of any person not a party hereto or specifically identified as a beneficiary herein, and it is not intended to constitute a third party beneficiary contract" is overridden by the notice provision. Plaintiff relies on Prouty v. Gores Technology Group (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 1225 (Prouty), in which the court allowed a third party beneficiary claim notwithstanding the language in the agreement that it was not to benefit any third party.