Allied Chemical Corporation v. Jack MacKay D/B/A MacKay Farms Ltd.

In this diversity case we must interpret Mississippi’s usury statute, Miss.Code Ann. § 75-17-1. * This is no small task. Section 75-17-1 has been amended on numerous occasions in recent years to adapt to innovative, complex commercial transactions and inflationary interest rates. From one short paragraph it has evolved into a statute with fourteen subsections, occupying a total of eight pages in the Mississippi Code. As a consequence, it is susceptible to numerous interpretations, none of which is unreasonable. Our task is to choose the one intended by the legislature.

This suit was brought by…