Court Opinion

ID: 9469254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:36:01.561715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:18.189686
License: Public Domain

BREYER, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I join the court’s opinion and concur only lest the “assumption” about consideration be taken as allowing the district court’s decision to stand as precedent on this point. As I read it, plaintiff’s counsel, in his opening statement, alleged that the defendant had agreed to extend the time for paying the principal (effectively turning the obligation into a demand note), provided that plaintiff would pay additional interest during this additional time. At 24 percent per year that comes to about $8 per day or $240 per additional month. If a promise to pay interest is good consideration for a loan in the first place, why isn’t a promise to pay more interest good consideration for a promise to extend the loan for an additional day, month or year — at least when that additional interest is explicitly “bargained for?” Garfinkle had the $12,000 for an extra day or an extra month or whatever; and Levitt had an additional $8 per day in interest. Interest of $8 per day, or $240 per month, or $2880 per year is a long way from a peppercorn. I do not read McCarthy v. *279Simon, 247 Mass. 514, 142 N.E. 806 (1924) as holding the contrary. Wilson v. Powers, 130 Mass. 127 (1881) is more difficult; but given the lack of explanation in this 100 year old ease, its special and appealing fact situation, the lack of any more modern authority called to our attention from Massachusetts or elsewhere, and the lack of any apparent reason for denying the existence of consideration (at least when the additional interest was made a specific part of the bargain), I would not conclude that Wilson states the current law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.