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135 Pa. 173

Clark v. Searight

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided May 19, 1890

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1890-05-19

No. 405 January Term 1890, Sup. Ct.; court below, No. 57 May Term 1889, C. P. To the number and term of the court below, Prank Clark brought foreign attachment in assumpsit against G. A. Searight, and on January 31, 1890, there was filed an agreement stating the following case for the opinion of the court, in the nature of a special verdict: The defendant on December 3, 1885, made and delivered to plaintiff, at Indianola in the state of Iowa, for a valuable consideration, a…

Relies on Wood, Bacon & Co. v. Kelso · Mullen v. Morris

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1890-05-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently January 1993

5 federal appellate · 7 state decisions

5018901900191019201930194019501960197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Per Curiam:

¶1It appears by the case stated that the promissory note in controversy was made and delivered in the state of Iowa. It was therefore an Iowa contract. It is true it was not made payable at any particular place; but, in the absence of any such stipulation, it was payable at the place where made. This is a well-settled rule of commercial law. It also appears by the case stated that the rate of interest, 10 per cent, called for by the note, is lawful by the laws of that state. Under these circumstances it is plain that the lex loci contractus must govern, and the rate of interest is to be determined by the law of the place where the contract was to be executed.

¶2An indorser is liable for interest on a protested bill of exchange according to the law of the place on which it is drawn: Mullen v. Morris, 2 Pa. 85. When a promissory note is made payable at a particular place, interest is allowed according to the law of the place appointed for payment: Wood v. *176Kelso, 27 Pa. 241. The rule is thus stated in 2 Edwards on Bills, § 1009: “ The authorities are numerous to show the general rule to be that interest is to be paid according to the law of the place where the contract is made, unless the payment is to be made elsewhere, and then it is to be according to the law of the place where the contract is to be performed.” The same rule is recognized by Chancellor Kent in his Commentaries, as well as by many other text-writers, while decisions to the same point might be cited almost without number. We need not refer to our act of 1858 in regard to interest, as it has no bearing upon contracts made and to be performed outside of the state.

¶3Judgment affirmed.

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