Lamprey v. Mason
| Citation | 19 N.E. 350,148 Mass. 231 |
| Parties | LAMPREY SAME v. MASON. SAME v. MASON et ux. |
| Decision Date | 02 January 1889 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
January 2, 1889
HEADNOTES
J.P. & B.B. Jones, for plaintiff.
Ira A Abbott and F.H. Pearl, for defendants.
The report presents two cases of great hardship for the defendants, but we can deal with them only by applying the principles of law by which they must be governed.
Under Pub.St. c. 77, § 3, it is lawful for parties to contract for any rate of interest or of discount. The Statutes of 1888, c 388, authorizing in all cases the discharge of loans for less than $1,000 by paying the principal and interest at the rate of 18 per cent. per annum, and a sum not exceeding $10 for the actual expenses of making and securing the loan, applies only to contracts made since its passage. In the cases at bar, the defendants admitted that the notes were given for a valuable consideration, and were duly signed. There was no allegation in either of the answers, nor offer of proof at the trial, of fraud in obtaining either of the notes. No such issue was presented as in Trambly v Ricard, 130 Mass. 259. The evidence excluded was offered "for the purpose of proving the allegations of the answers," and it had no relation to the validity of the contracts in their inception. The finding from the papers in the case, that the contracts were unconscionable in the rate prescribed to be paid for the use and detention of the money, does not, in the absence of fraud, legally justify the court in refusing to enforce them. It is, in effect, a finding merely that there was gross inadequacy of consideration, which, in itself alone, never renders a contract invalid. The case of Cutler v. Johnson, 8 Mass. 266, cited by the defendants, rests upon the usury laws in force when it was decided. The same laws seem to have had an influence in the decision of Cutler v. How, Id. 257, and of Baxter v. Wales, 12 Mass. 365; and in these cases, and in Boynton v. Hubbard, 7 Mass. 112-123, there are intimations which are inconsistent with the uniform current of later decision.
The defendants contend that the notes ceased to be binding as to the rates of interest named in them, by reason of the failure of the plaintiff to render accounts of the amounts due on them; but the payee of a promissory note upon which payments have been made is not legally bound to furnish the maker with a statement of the amount due upon it. The parties are supposed to have equal knowledge upon that subject. The maker can protect his rights and stop interest by tendering a sum sufficient to cover the whole amount due. In these cases there was no tender nor plea of tender, and it appears that the defendants never had on hand a sufficient sum to...
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