Lamprey v. Mason

• Decision Date: 02 January 1889
• Citation: 19 N.E. 350,148 Mass. 231
• Parties: LAMPREY v. MASON. SAME v. MASON et ux.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

148 Mass. 231

19 N.E. 350

LAMPREY

v.MASON.

SAME

v.MASON et ux.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

January 2, 1889.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HEREReported case from superior court, Essex county; JOHN LATHROP, Judge.

Actions by William B. Lamprey against Sidney Mason, and by the same plaintiff against Sidney and Rachel Mason, upon four promissory notes,-the notes in the first case being for $62 and $37, respectively, and signed by defendant Sidney Mason; and those in the second case, being for $60.75 and $90, respectively, were signed by defendants Sidney Mason and his wife, Rachel Mason. The interest agreed to be paid in each of the first two notes was at the rate of two dollars per month, and that in the last two notes was at the rate of three dollars and four dollars per month, respectively. The answers denied plaintiff's allegations and the signatures to the notes, and set up payment. Defendants further answered that the rates of interest provided for in the notes were unconscionable, and defendants ought not to be charged therewith after one month from the dates of the notes; and further answered that about January 1, 1886, defendants were ready and willing to pay the amounts justly due on account of the notes, and requested plaintiff to state the amount justly due on account of the notes, or the amount which he claimed to be justly due, but plaintiff fraudulently and willfully refused so to do, and though defendants have often since requested the plaintiff so to do, he has fraudulently and willfully neglected so to do, and defendants ought not to be charged with interest at the rates specified in the notes after the time when he first requestedplaintiff to state the amounts due on them. “For the purpose of proving the allegations of their answers,” defendants offered to prove that they “were born in slavery, and that the female defendant can neither read nor write; also that the male defendant can write nothing but his name; that neither of them have any knowledge of mathematics, or of the meaning of interest; that at the time of the taking of one of these mortgages, the plaintiff came to the defendant's house, and asked the male defendant if this was his place, and that he said that it was; that about the 1st of January, 1886, the defendant requested the plaintiff to make a statement of the amount which he claimed to be due on the notes, and that the defendant said that he was busy, and could not stop to do it then; that the defendant at that time had partly money enough on hand, in his pocket, and at home, to pay the notes, and that he was possessed of unincumbered real estate on which he could have raised money to pay the notes; that a great many times after that, between that and the 1st of May, 1887, the defendantrequested the plaintiff to make a statement, and asked him how much was due, and that the plaintiff told the defendant then not to fret about it, that he was fretting a great deal more than he was,-that the defendant was fretting more than the plaintiff was; and also that during this time before the 1st of May, 1887, the plaintiff had been driving a job wagon in Haverhill, but that about the 1st of May, 1887, he went to work for the town of Bradford as the driver of its fire department; that he then told the plaintiff that he was to change his occupation, and that he wanted to fix up with him, and asked how much he owed; that the plaintiff again told him not to worry, and said, ‘You don't owe me much any way; it don't amount to much,’ and, ‘Don't worry about it.’ ” Judgment for plaintiff in each case was ordered, but the court ruled that plaintiff in each case was entitled to recover interest at the rate specified in the notes to date of the writ, and from that time forward he was entitled to interest at the rate of 6 per cent.

J.P. & B.B. Jones, for plaintiff.

Ira A. Abbott and F.H. Pearl, for defendants.

KNOWLTON, J.

The report presents two cases of great hardship for the defendants, but we can deal with them only by applying the...