Case Name: James Verree and Joseph M. Paul vs. Thomas Hughes
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1829-09
Citations: 11 N.J.L. 92
Docket Number: 
Parties: James Verree and Joseph M. Paul vs. Thomas Hughes.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 11
Pages: 113–114

Head Matter:
James Verree and Joseph M. Paul vs. Thomas Hughes.
When a judgment is obtained upon a bond or contract, bearing date prior to the fourth of July, L824, the interest after the date of the judgment is to be computed at six per cent.
A judgment was entered on the 29th of November, 1825, by virtue of a warrant of attorney, and a bond bearing date on the 6th of June, 1809, conditioned for the payment of $6,446.31; and an'execution was issued, and there was endorsed on it a direction *to “Levy balance of prin- [*92 cipal and interest due November 9th, 1825, $7,174.76, besides costs.”
L. Q. 0. Elmer,
applied to the court, for the purpose of ascertaining the rate of interest which should be calculated ; and contended that as the bond upon which the judgment was entered, bore date prior to the fourth of July, 1824, the interest upon the judgment ought to be computed at the rate of seven per centum.
D. Elmer,
contra, contended that interest should be calculated at the rate of six per cent, from the date of the judgment ; and said that the practice of the Court of Chancery in casting interest upon a bond which bore date prior to the fourth of July, 1824, is to compute interest at seven per cent, up to the date of the master’s report, and from that time at six per cent.; and this practice proceeded upon the principle that the bond was extinguished by the decree.

Opinion:
By the Court.
Wo are of opinion that the calculation should be made at six and not seven per cent, from the date of the judgment. Whenever a new principal is formed of a date subsequent to the fourth of July, 1824, the interest. must be computed at six per cent. When a judgment is obtained, in England on . a foreign contract, the foreign interest is calculated up to the time of the judgment, and after that the English, if any, interest is allowed.
PT. B. The court did not intend to sanction the mode here adopted, of making a new or compound principal; nor to deny seven per cent., if the calculation had been made on the original principal only.