Eldred v. Hart’s Empirical Analysis
1908
Citation profile
39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 41 later decisions — most recently April 1980 · most notably Briggs v. Steele (1909), Hayes v. First National Bank of Memphis (1974)
39 state decisions
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.
Relationships
Relies on Leonhard v. Flood · Scruggs v. Scottish Mortgage Co. · Banks v. Flint · Savannah Savings Bank v. Logan · Keckley v. Union Bank
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In the present case Hart had the option to let the loan run for the entire period of five years; and if he had done so, the undisputed facts show that he would have paid eight per cent, interest. The parties had the right, when the contract was made, to divide up the payments for interest to suit their own convenience, and to have separate obligations given for all or any part of it. “This seems to have been the plan adopted. If Hart had let the loan run for the full period of five years, he does not claim that he would have paid more than eight per cent, interest. He could not have been compelled to have paid it before that time. He did not obligate himself to do so. He only obligated himself to pay the interest as it accrued before the principal sum fell due. So then it is undisputed that by the terms of the contract, as it could have been enforced against him, it was not affected with usury. The payment made by appellee Hart was voluntary, and was in the exercise of an option given him by the contract. “Where a debt, including both principal and interest and . due by installments, if paid according to the terms of the contract, is free from usury, the transaction is not rendered usurious by the voluntary payment of the debt in full before some of the installments matured, although as a result the creditor would receive, in the aggregate, a sum amounting to more than the principal and the maximum legal rate of interest.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.