Kermott v. Ayer
| Decision Date | 13 January 1863 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | John W. Kermott and others v. James C. Ayer and another |
Submitted on briefs January 9, 1863,
Error to Wayne Circuit.
The defendants in error brought suit in the Court below to recover the amount of two promissory notes, upon one of which no question arises. The other was for $ 190 9s. 11d., given and made payable in Canada West, and due in August, 1856. On the trial, after the giving of the notes had been proved, T W. Lockwood was sworn as a witness for the plaintiffs, and testified that he had had several business transactions with attorneys and bankers in Canada, and in that way had had occasion to learn the value of Canada and Halifax currency in common use there, as compared with our own, and that one pound was equivalent to four dollars, and five shillings was a dollar. This evidence was objected to, but the Circuit Judge admitted it, and remarked that the value of a pound in Halifax currency was historically well known and established and in common use in Canada West, to be of the value of four dollars legal currency of the United States; and that in the same way the legal interest established by law and common usage in Canada West was known to be six per cent per annum. It was then admitted by the defendants that an attorney residing in Canada West would, if produced, testify that the legal rate of interest in Canada was six per cent and that if this evidence was deemed admissible, it should be considered as having been produced. But it was objected to on the ground that the statute of Canada regulating the rate of interest in that province should be produced.
The objection was overruled.
The foregoing was all the evidence on these questions.
Judgment affirmed, with costs.
D. J Davidson, for plaintiff in error, argued that Lockwood's evidence was incompetent, because he was not shown to be an expert; and that parol evidence of the rate of interest was also incompetent: 20 Ill. 201; 3 Fost. 496; 5 Mich. 349. It sufficiently appeared that the rate of interest was fixed by statute. "According to the laws thereof" must be interpreted to mean the statute laws. But the court in the absence of any showing to the contrary was bound to presume that the rate was fixed by statute. It is a commercial regulation, and in its nature an appropriate subject of statutory enactment: 2 Wash. C. C., 1; Ibid., 175. Interest is not allowed by the common law.
What the Circuit Judge designed to be understood by "historical knowledge" is not clear. Historical knowledge can hardly inform us of the present value of the pound. But if he meant that in the absence of all evidence on the subject, the judge might act upon his own knowledge, he was clearly in error.
T. W Lockwood, for defendants in error, referred to the statute of the United States: 9 Stat. at Large, 14; Brightly, 156, which fixes the custom house value of the Canada pound at four dollars. But its value was a mere matter of ordinary business knowledge, which any one dealing with the province may prove. The rate of interest is not shown to be fixed by statute. But it was incumbent on the party claiming that it differed from our own, to establish that fact by evidence, or it will be presumed to be the same: Leavenworth v. Brockway, 2 Hill 201; State v. Rood, 12 Vt. 396; Crane v. Hardy, 1 Mich. 63; Jones v. Palmer, 1 Doug. Mich., 380; Rue High's case, 2...
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Autio v. Proksch Const. Co., 9
...219 N.W. 721), the remedy for all matters connected with compensation must be found in the statute, and our holding in the Kermott case ((1863), 11 Mich. 181), is that interest is statutory. It must follow that where the statute does not provide for interest, none can be granted.' In Wilson......
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...counsel, we take cognizance of the fact that the language used was the product of negotiations among the parties.2 See Kermott v. Ayer, 11 Mich. 181, 184 (1863); Motyka v. Detroit, G.H. & M.R. Co., 260 Mich. 396, 398, 244 N.W. 897 (1932); Solakis v. Roberts, 395 Mich. 13, 21, 233 N.W.2d 1 (......
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