Case ID: super-ct-jud_1/html/0108-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Just. Oliver.\n     \n      Just. Cushing.\n     \n      Ch. Justice.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Present: Ch. Justice, Justice Cushing & Justice Oliver.
    Bromfield vers. Little.
    1764.
    
      It seems, that there is no Custom of Merchants in this Country, of charging Interest after a Year on the Price of Goods sold which will raise an implied Contact to pay the same.
    IN this Action was a general Indebitatus Assumpsit on Account annexed. One Article was a Charge of Interest.
    The Council for the Plaintiff urged, that it was a Custom of Merchants here to charge Interest after a Year: (Several Merchants were sworn on this Head, but they did not agree about the Time, neither whether they did or did not first inform the Debtor. The Justness of the Charge was argued from Charge of Interest after a Year, at Home.
    
    In Behalf of Defendant, ’twas said, there was no such Custom here at all; yet if it could be said there was a Custom here to charge after Notice either at or after Sale, certainly not before Notice.
   Just. Oliver.

Whether this is a reasonable Cut tom must first be considered. I think it is. I think, too, it appears to be a Custom.

Just. Cushing.

This Case is very different from what it is at Home; ’tis there the universal Usage, which makes it the Supposition of every Party at first; and, as a Person purchasing Goods without any special Promise is supposed to promise the Payment of the Customary Price, so he is supposed to engage to pay the customary Allowance for Forbearance; but here, however reasonable it may be, it is yet otherwise, nor is it implied in the Contract.

Ch. Justice.

This Case is of much Importance to the Community. ’Tis agreeable to natural Equity that Interest should be allowed; and I am glad it is growing into a Custom; but the Rule is that both Parties ought at the Time of contracting to understand it so, and I doubt whether it is so general as that it can be supposed in this Case.

The Jury did not allow Interest.

N. B. The Superiour Court now altered, and the Sitting, instead of being the third Tuesday of February and third Tuesday of August, is the second Tuesday in March and last Tuesday in August. March 12, A. D. 1765. () 
      
      (1) Prov. St. 5 G. 3, c. 6, Mass. Perpet. Laws, 481.