Parks v. Evans

10 Del. 576

• Court: Superior Court of Delaware
• Decided: July 5, 1879
• Status: Published

Opinion

The Court

was of this opinion and admitted it in evidence.

The counsel for the plaintiff then put it in evidence and rested his case.

On which the counsel for the defendants moved a nonsuit upon the ground that he had failed to prove, as he should have done in such a case, that the note was made in the State of Missouri. By the statute of this State it was void for usury, and without proof of that fact, as a fact in the case, no action here could be maintained upon it; and if not required in such a case to be actually and affirmatively proved in our courts, it may soon open a very easy and convenient side way for the evasion of our statute against usury in the making of promissory notes particularly.

But the Court overruled the motion and said the presumption both in law and fact is that every promissory note was made where it is dated as we term it, if any place is stated in the date of it, and in this case the place inserted and stated in the date of the note constitutes an express admission on the face of it by the signers and makers of it, the defendants, that it was made at Westport, Missouri. It is, however, but a presumption merely, subject to rebuttal at any time.