22 Ga. 193 | Ga. | 1857
By the Court.
delivering the opinion.
The errors assigned in this case aré upon the refusal of the Court to grant a new trial. The record does not disclose, clearly, the rulings of the Court upon the several points raised by counsel, during the progress of the trial. The points themselves and the decision of the Court upon them, appear imperfectly, and by inference from the motion for the new trial. The Court granted the rule nisi, and his having granted it, is equivalent to a certificate on the part of the presiding Judge, that what transpired on the trial, so far as it is stated in the rule, is stated correctly. We shall so consider the grounds set forth in the motion, and proceed to examine them, passing over the first ground, until we dispose of the balance.
The third ground m the motion was properly overruled by the Court, for the same reason.
No particular part of the testimony is pointed out in the record, as inadmissible under the plea of usury.
We are at a loss to ascertain from this record, what the charge of the Court to the jury was, in regard to the'indebtedness of Harrison & Williams to Holland, but from what we have already said, it will be seen that it was necessary to examine into that to reach the origin of the transaction from which the consideration of the note sued on springs, and to determine properly on the merits of the defence.
In his estimation, then, the pennyweight of gold was worth one dollar. When he let them have the money and the delivery of the bullion was deferred, there was to be a deduction in the price of the gold of two cents per pennyweight, per month. If the payment was deferred for twelve months, the pennyweight of gold, at the unchanged value of one dollar, was to be paid at seventy six cents. No interest was charged by the plaintiff for the advance of his money, but he was to receive pay in gold, depreciated by contract, to seventy-six cents, when it was worth one dollar per pennyweight. When the note of $2,213 12 was given and the note of $1,456 was taken up, he says he did not calculate interest or premium on the note taken up. The settlement was made and the note given, extending the time by calculating the discount upon the price of the gold dust at two cents per dwt. per month. He says the' parties agreed to sell him gold dust or bullion. According to him, then, the whole transaction was a traffic for gold dust or bullion. He paid his money in advance, and they agreed to pay him gold dust or bullion. Such is not the written evidence. The parties do not promise to pay gold dust or bullion, in a single note presented in record as evidence. They are all promissory notes in the usual form for money. We are not prepared to say, therefore, that the jury found upon the plaintiff’s evidence, if they predicated their verdict on that, a verdict contrary to evidence, when they found the note to be usurious. The verdict then should stand, so far as it finds the contract to be usurious. It does not fellow that the verdict should have been for the defendants. The plaintiff’s account of the matter affords no data for determining whether the whole sum of $1,456 was due to him as principal or as usury; or what part was principal and what part was usury; or whether the firm had paid, in gold, valued at one dollar per
Judgment reversed.