Plitt v. Et Ux., 143.

• Citation: 53 A.2d 673
• Decision Date: 11 June 1947
• Docket Number: No. 143.,143.
• Parties: PLITT v. KAUFMAN et ux.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

53 A.2d 673

PLITT
v.
KAUFMAN et ux.

No. 143.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 11, 1947.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Baltimore County; John B. Gontrum, Judge.

Suit by Harry J. Kaufman and Elizabeth M. Kaufman, his wife, against Clarence M. Plitt for an accounting and to enjoin sale of certain property under execution. From an order overruling defendant's demurrer to the bill, defendant appeals.

Reversed and remanded with directions.

53 A.2d 674

T. Lyde Mason, Jr., of Baltimore (J. Dallas Kirwan, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Joseph O. Kaiser, of Baltimore (R. Palmer Ingram, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellees.

Before MARBURY, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, GRASON, HENDERSON, and MARKELL, JJ.

DELAPLAINE, Judge.

This suit was brought by Harry J. Kaufman and Elizabeth M. Kaufman, his wife, of Baltimore County, against Clarence M. Plitt, of Baltimore City, to obtain an injunction and accounting. They allege in their bill of complaint that from time to time from 1932 to 1935, while defendant and his brother, E. Wilbur Plitt, were conducting a wholesale meat business, defendant advanced sums of money to complainants' son, Roland Kaufman, a retail meat dealer, when he was unable to make prompt payments for purchases of meat. They allege that they signed for their son eight promissory notes in the total amount

53 A.2d 675

of $11,750, but that $2,750 of this amount was for interest and carrying charges; and that in May, 1935, the son gave four checks totalling $650, for which defendant advanced $520, and the father gave a check for $500, for which defendant advanced $450. They then allege that in 1936 defendant represented that the total amount due on the notes and checks was $6,893.22, and warned the father that he would institute criminal prosecution against the son for obtaining goods under false pretenses, a charge he knew to be false, unless both parents should sign a confessed judgment note; and that on February 1, 1936, induced by defendant's threat, they gave him a note for $7,500. They further allege that on March 12, 1937, defendant obtained on the note in the Superior Court of Baltimore City a judgment by confession against complainants for the sum of $7,552.50 and attorney's commission of $750 for collection; and on July 3, 1946, he caused a writ of fieri facias to be issued on the judgment, whereupon the sheriff levied on their home at 1005 Leeds Avenue, which they own as tenants by the entireties, and advertised it for public sale on July 30. They charge that the judgment includes usurious interest amounting to $3,700, and that the amount actually due with legal interest (after deducting $500 paid for two waivers of the judgment lien, the first given in July, 1937, the other in January, 1939) does not exceed $7,500; and accordingly they tender a certified check for $7,500 payable to the order of the clerk. They pray for an injunction to prevent sale of the property under execution, and an accounting to determine the amount legally due on the judgment. Defendant demurred to the bill, and he is now appealing from an order overruling his demurrer.

From earliest times in history the taking of excessive interest for the loan of money has been regarded with abhorrence. In medieval England, the people, especially the English Church, held the opinion that the payment of any interest for the loan of money was corrupt and sinful. Under laws promulgated in the 10th and 11th centuries, when a man was found to be a usurer, his chattels were forfeited to the Crown and his lands escheated to the lord of the fee. Gray v. Bennett, 3 Metc., Mass., 522, 527; Dunham v. Gould, 16 Johns., N.Y., 367, 8 Am.Dec. 323. In 1545 Parliament adopted the Usury Act, Statute of 37 Henry VIII, ch. 9, providing that any contract for the loan of money at a rate of interest higher than 10 per cent should be wholly void. Likewise in Colonial America, the usury statutes, modeled after a later English Act, Statute...