Case ID: mass_71/html/0599-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

James McFadin & another vs. Lewis Burns & others.
    A statute of another state, providing that, in any action on a contract in which more than six per cent, interest is reserved, the plaintiff shall have judgment for the amount of the debt, deducting the unlawful interest, and then adding interest at the rate of six per cent., the interest so recovered to go to the use of the common schools of the county, does not apply to an action in this state on such a contract made in that state; but the plaintiff in such an action may recover interest at the rate of six per cent.
    Action of contract upon a factor’s account, rendered in St. Louis, in the State of Missouri, where both parties resided, with interest charged at ten per cent.
    At the trial in this court, the plaintiffs offered evidence that it had been agreed between the parties that in all their mutual accounts interest should be reserved and paid at ten per cent., and claimed the right to recover interest at that rate.
   The defendants gave in evidence the statute of Missouri of January 15th 1847, prohibiting the taking of interest at a greater rate than six per cent., and providing that in any action on a contract made within that state in which it should be found that more than that rate was agreed for or taken, the court should give judgment for the plaintiff for the principal sum due, after deducting the amount of unlawful interest taken or agreed for; and also judgment for interest at the rate of six per cent, on the balance ; and order the whole amount of interest to be set apart for the use of the common schools of the county in which the action was brought, and, when collected, to form part of the common school fund for the county; and that the defendant should recover his costs. The defendants contended that this contract being made in Missouri, and for a rate of interest unlawful in that state, the plaintiffs, by the law of Missouri, could recover no interest. But the chief justice ruled that that law did not apply to this action ; and the jury, by his direction, returned a verdict for the amount of the account, with interest at the rate of six per cent.

The defendants took exceptions, upon which the case was submitted without argument, and the

Exceptions overruled.