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56 Minn. 155

Grieser v. Hall

Supreme Court of Minnesota

Decided January 5, 1894

Supreme Court of Minnesota · decided 1894-01-05

Appeal by plaintiffs, Louis H. Grieser and Emil Hartman, from an order of the District Court of St. Louis County, L. L. Baxter, J., made July 21, 1893, denying tbeir motion for a new trial. On March 3, 1892, at Duluth, the plaintiff, Louis H. Grieser, borrowed of Alice King $1,300 for ninety days and he, and Emil Hartman as his surety, gave her their note for the amount, bearing interest at the rate of ten per cent, a year.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1894-01-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently January 1941

4 state decisions

20189419001910192019301940decided

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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Mitchell, J.

¶1The issue in this case was purely one of fact, and the only question presented by this appeal is whether the evidence was sufficient to justify the finding of the court that the original promissory note, (of which the note in suit was a renewal,) executed by plaintiffs to Mrs. King, was not usurious.

¶2We think the court may well have found that Mrs. King supposed that Warner was plaintiffs’ agent to secure the loan, and not her agent in making it, and that as such he was entitled from them to a- commission, of which he voluntarily gave her the benefit. This ■version of the transaction, which was justified by Mrs. King’s testimony, was entirely consistent with the conclusion that there was no intention on her part to take or contract for more than the legal rate of interest for the use of the money loaned, which is always an essential constituent of usury. The existence of this corrupt intent is always a question of fact to be collected from the whole of the transaction as it passed between the parties.

¶3Moreover, the attitude which both plaintiff G-rieser and his principal witness, Warner, occupied with reference to the matter was not calculated to commend their testimony to the special favor of the court.

¶4Order affirmed.

¶5(Opinion published 57 bf. W. Rep. 462.)

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