Madison County IL Archives Court.....Eakle, Vs. Mason 1819-31
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Deb Haines http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000719 June 4, 2008, 11:18 pm

Source: Reports Of Cases Illinois
Written: 1819-31

NOVEMBER TERM, 1824.


James & Paris Mason, Plaintiffs in Error, v. Christian Eakle, Defendant in 
Error.

ERROR TO MADISON.

A contract to pay a sum of money with twenty percent. interest, is merged in 
the judgment rendered upon such contract, and the judgment is then controlled 
by the statute and not by the contract.

An execution issued upon such judgment for "twenty per cent. interest from its 
rendition," will be quashed.

Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Reynolds. The only error assigned in 
this case is, that the court below erred in refusing to set aside an execution 
which had issued in favor of the defendant, against the plaintiffs. It was 
agreed upon the argument, that the note upon which judgment was rendered, 
stipulated for the payment of twenty per cent. interest.

The judgment was rendered for the amount of the principal, with the twenty per 
cent. interest to the time of the rendition of such judgment, but was silent 
as to any rate of interest thereafter to be recovered. The execution commanded 
the sheriff to make the amount of the judgment with twenty per cent. interest 
from the rendition of the judgment. The court are of the opinion that the 
court below erred in refusing to set aside the execution. The statute, it is 
true, makes legal any rate of interest for which the parties contract, but the 
statute also declares, that judgments shall bear but six per cent. interest. 
When a judgment is obtained upon a contract, that contract ceases to be, and 
is merged in the judgment, and the judgment is operated upon, and controlled, 
not by the contract, but by the statute.

The judgment must be reversed, the cause remanded with instructions to the 
court below to set aside the execution. The plaintiffs must recover their 
costs. (1)

Judgment reversed.

Starr, for plaintiff in error. 

Smith, for defendant in error.

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(1) Affirmed in Pearsons v. Hamilton, 1 Scam., 415.

Additional Comments:
Reports of Cases at Common Law and in Chancery, Argued and Determined in the 
Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, From its First Organization in 1819, 
to the End of December Term, 1831. By Sidney Breese, Counsellor at Law. Second 
Edition, with Additional Notes, By Edwin Beecher. Chicago: Callaghan & 
Company, 1877.

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