40 Iowa 19 | Iowa | 1874
I. Upon the trial, the testimony on the part of plaintiffs tended to show that the transaction mentioned in the first count was a loan, while that of defendants tended, with quite as much force, to show that it was a sale. When the evidence was nearly concluded, the plaintiffs filed a petition under Code, Secs. 3685-6, asking that defendants be required to produce to be inspected, copied and used as evidence, their day-book, journal, ledger and cash book for the years 1869, 1870 and 1871, and stating that the defendants had the custody of said books, that there were entries therein showing that defendants had treated the money mentioned in the first count as a loan, and the notes of Bailey & Co. as collateral; that they expected to prove by said books that defendants have charged plaintiffs with interest on that money as a loan, and credited them with money collected on the collaterals, the Bailey notes. This was sworn to by one of the plaintiffs. The court refused to require the defendants to produce said books, etc., and this refusal is assigned as the first error.
The statute provides that upon such an application the rule shall be granted “ if the court deems such rule expedient and proper.” It is a matter, therefore, left to the sound legal discretion
II. It is next assigned as error that the court should have found the transaction mentioned in the first count a loan, and not a sale; but upon the evidence as we have it, our judgment accords with that of the learned judge who tried the cause.
III. The court below found the loan mentioned in the second count usurious, and rendered judgment against the plaintiffs
Afjtbmed.