State ex rel. Smith v. McMahon

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Dawson, J.:

In these actions the state’s relator seeks to stamp out the business of usurers who prey on the poorer classes of laboring folk in Wyandotte county. To that end the aid of the injunctive powers of the district court have been invoked. Demurrers to the plaintiff’s petitions were sustained, and the state appeals.

The petitions allege that each of defendants keeps a place in Wyandotte county where usurious rates of interest ranging from 240 per cent to 520 per cent per annum are extorted from laboring men' whose necessitous circumstances force…