What is the statute of limitations for a civil conspiracy?

However, the trial judge correctly noted that, when a civil conspiracy is properly alleged and proved, the statute of limitations does not begin to run on any part of a plaintiff's claims until the "last overt act" pursuant to the conspiracy has been completed. (Schessler v. Keck (1954) 125 Cal.App.2d 827, 832-833, 271 P.2d 588.) Here the "last overt act" was appellants' collection a few weeks before trial of the final payment on the 1970 loan. This was the culminating act in the conspiracy to defraud respondents which began with the first tortious act in 1966. Therefore, the trial judge correctly refused to instruct the jury on the statute of limitations.

Appellants would have this court repudiate the "last overt act" doctrine of Schessler v. Keck, supra, 125 Cal.App.2d 827, 271 P.2d 588. Schessler derived the doctrine by analogy to the law regarding Criminal conspiracies. However, appellants stress, it is only because a criminal conspiracy is itself a [24 Cal.3d 787] punishable and continuing wrong that courts stay the running of the statute of limitations until acts in furtherance of the conspiracy have ceased. This rationale, appellants conclude, is absent in the case of a civil conspiracy, precisely because such a conspiracy is neither a punishable offense standing alone nor a wrong capable of supporting a cause of action by its own weight.

The differences between civil and criminal conspiracies are accurately characterized by appellants. However, they are somewhat beside the point. Statutes of limitations have, as their general purpose, to provide repose and to protect persons against the burden of having to defend against stale claims. ³ (Telegraphers v. Ry. Express Agency (1944) 321 U.S. 342, 348-349, 64 S.Ct. 582, 88 L.Ed. 788; Shain v. Sresovich (1894) 104 Cal. 402, 406, 38 P. 51.) So long as a person continues to commit wrongful acts in furtherance of a conspiracy to harm another, he can neither claim unfair prejudice at the filing of a claim against him nor disturbance of any justifiable repose built upon the passage of time.