Jenkins v. Dugger’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 state decisions

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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Usury imports the existence of four elements: (1) A loan or forbearance, either express or implied; (2) an understanding between the parties that the principal shall be repayable absolutely; (3) the exaction of a greater profit than allowed by law; and (4) an intention to violate the law. The last may be implied if the first three are present. The element that a greater profit is exacted by the lender than allowed under the law must be made to clearly appear in applying the statute here under consideration. It is not to be lightly assumed that the avarice of a lender would drive him to the risk of a forfeiture of his entire investment in order to obtain a slight unlawful gain. A contract is usurious when there is any contingency by which the lender may get more than the lawful rate of interest. It does not depend on whether the lender actually gets more than is lawful, but whether there was a purpose to obtain more than legal interest for the use of his money, and whether the terms of the transaction and the means used to effect the loan are appropriate to that end. In order to determine the illegality of the exaction the inquiry must always be directed to what the lender is to receive, not what the borrower is to pay. From the Mosaic laws to the present, every civilized society has recognized that the necessitous borrower was likely to become the victim of the avaricious lender, and the weight of every law on the subject has fallen on the possibility of the receipt by the l”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In Re Bogan