Wetter v. Hardesty

Le Grand, C. J., delivered the opinion of this court: This appeal is from an order of the Superior court of Baltimore city dissolving an injunction issued to restrain the appellee — who was defendant below — from proceeding to foreclose a mortgage and collect certain ground rents claimed to ¹⁴ be due him by the appellant. The bill of complaint asks, the reformation and correction of the contract under which the appellee became possessed of the mortgage and ground rents, so as to make all things conform to the allegations of the bill. The grounds on which the application is made are, that of usury, and that of fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation. The answer of the defendant denies all usury and fraud. .

The case made by the bill is in substance this: — the complainant being much in want of money to relieve him from a pressing demand, made application to the defendant for a loan of three thousand dollars. The purpose to which the money was to be applied was the payment of a mortgage of that amount, from himself and wife, to one Ward. That the proposition was declined by the defendant, except on the condition, that the amount of the proposed loan should be increased to twelve thousand dollars, and negotiable paper taken for a large proportion of such loan instead of cash; that after some negotiation, and finding that he could not effect a loan from the defendant on more favorable terms, he concluded with him, on or about the first of April 1857, an arrangement, whereby the defendant was to pay in full and take from Ward an assignment of his three thousand dollar mortgage, and give to the complainant, in cash, seventeen hundred dollars; a lot of ground in the city of Baltimore valued at one thousand dollars, to be taken as so much cash; negotiable paper of sundry persons, two thousand three hundred dollars, and the notes of a certain William Pratt, secured by mortgage, four thousand dollars, making a total of twelve thousand dollars. For three thousand of the amount Ward’s assigned mortgage was to be the security, and for the residue of nine thousand dollars, with ten per cent, interest thereon, two ground rents were created, one for four hundred and the other for five hundred dollars per annum; that by the terms of an agreement between the parties, the defendant obligated himself, at any time within five years, on the payment to him of nine thousand dollars — he in the meantime receiving the annual rents of nine hundred dollars — to re-convey and as ¹⁵ sign to the complainant, the property conveyed and assigned to him by the defendant, and on which the rents were imposed.

The bill alleges, in regard to the notes of Pratt, (some of which had fallen due and remained unpaid,) that there was no likelihood of any of them being paid, and that the defendant had been applied to and requested to accept said notes as payment of the amounts then due to him by the complainant, but, that the defendant declined and refused to so receive them, insisting that the complainants took the notes at his own risk, as a loan of that much cash for which he is responsible to the defendant, although such notes should prove wholly worthless, and that the latter has threatened, and is about to foreclose, the mortgage to Ward assigned to him, and to enforce the payment of the ground rents. The gist of the bill is, that the whole transaction is fraudulent, usurious and void, and that it ought to be cancelled and set aside, and the defendant should account for what he has received, and the complainant pay the amount; that until this be done, the proceedings