Standard Founders, Inc. v. Wiley

Offutt, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. James W. Wiley, the appellee, brought this proceeding in the Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City against the Standard Founders, Incorporated, to secure an injunction restraining the defendant from enforcing payment of a loan of three hundred dollar’s due by the appellee to the appellant, secured by a mortgage from Wiley to the Commonwealth Mortgage Company, title to which by mesne assignments is now vested in the appellant, on certain leasehold property in the City of Baltimore. The mortgage, and a note for three hundred dollars, which it was given to secure, required the mortgagor to pay interest on the loan at the rate of three and a half per cent, per month. The ground for the relief prayed is that that rate of interest is usurious, that the appellee has paid to the appellant a sum sufficient to satisfy the mortgage, together with interest thereon at six per cent, per annum, and that therefore he is entitled to' have the debt and the mortgage released.

After stating the mortgage, the assignments, and a threat by the assignee to foreclose, the appellee in his bill of complaint alleged “that since the execution by him, of said mortgage on the 13th of May, 1926,- he has made payments amounting in all to five hundred ninety-five dollars and ⁸³ ($595.22) twenty-two cents on account of principal and interest and after the receipt of said letter from Attorney Bregel, demanded a release of said mortgage, which demand has been refused and the defendant herein has threatened to institute foreclosure proceedings under said mortgage and to offer for sale at public auction the property of your orator, namely,