Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

3 Ala. 158

Cameron v. Nall

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided June 15, 1841

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1841-06-15

<p>1. When a note is made for the purpose of being sold by the payee, at a greater discount than the legal rate of interest, and is sold to one who is ignorant of the purposes for which the note was made, the latter is not chargeable with usury ; and although the note in his hands would be liable to be scaled to the amount paid for it, as having no other consideration to support it, yet if the parties subsequently give a new note, the defence arising out of the consideration can not be made, as it is equivalent to a new promise to pay, without disclosing the defect in the consideration.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1841-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently April 1932

4 state decisions

201841185018601870188018901900191019201930decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

GOLDTHWAITE, J.

¶1If the statute in relation to usurious interest, had remained unchanged, the cases cited would be conclusive to show that the original note was void, even in the hands of a bona fide holder; but such is not now the case, for the act of 1834, Aik. Dig. 655, provides that the note shall be void only as to the interest. This note was not, therefore, void in its inception, but it presents the case of a note made without any consideration moving from the payee to the makers; it was made for the purpose of being sold to the present holder of the substituted note, and if he had acquired it, with a knowledge of the intention, would have only been void for the excess above, the sum paid by him for it. It is probable that in this condition of things, the maker would have peen permitted to show, in defence, that the note had no other consideration to support it, than what was paid by Nall, and they would not be tolerated to conceal from him the fact that the note was without consideration, and afterwards* insist on it as a defence.

¶2He had a right to purchase the note, and after purchase, it could be avoided in his hands for any want or failure of consideration, unless the makers had concealed the fact, on his application to them for information. He afterwards applied to them for payment, as we must presume, and they gave a new note, due more than a year afterwards: Even then they make no claim of a defence. We think the new promise was a waiver of any defence, as to the original consideration, and it would be a fraud on the holder, to permit the defendants now to inquire into the defective consideration of'the first note.

¶3Let the judgment be affirmed.

/3/ala/158 · .json · Public domain