Argument for Plaintiff in Error. Flint took the notes and deed in behalf of the plaintiff, and afterwards endorsed the notes to the plaintiff. The defendant pleaded four pleas, two of which were stricken out by the court; and the case was tried upon the first, which was an ordinary plea of nil debet, and upon the second, wherein the defendant alleged that the consideration of these notes was a loan of money by the plaintiff to the defendant of the sum of $6463, and that all of said sum and notes sued on in excess of said sum was contrary to law, and defendant was only liable for the sum received by him and lawful interest thereon from the dates of the notes, which amount he averred his willingness to pay. Upon the trial, the defendant relied solely upon the defence of usury, and the court charged the jury that the defendant admitted an indebtedness of $6463, with interest, etc., and instructed them in any event to return a verdict for that amount. In this connection he further charged that, if they believed the defendant received $6800, they were then directed to return a verdict for that sum, with interest and attorney fees, etc. The jury returned a verdict for $6800 principal, $2041.51 interest, and $884.15 attorney fees, making a total amount of $9725.66, for which a judgment was entered with costs. Plaintiff thereupon secured the settlement of a bill of exceptions and sued out a writ of error from this court. Mr. N. J. Hammond, (with whom were Mr. Simeon E Baldwin and Mr. W. E. Simmons on the brief,) for plaintiff in error, said on the question of jurisdiction: Our action is a statutory method of enforcing a security, and the test of jurisdiction is the value of the security, which is an absolute title, or of the debt. The debt secured was $8500, beside interest and attorney's fees, and the property to which title was given as security is worth $22,500. The Georgia statutes on which our rights depend are printed in the margin.1 1" SEC. 1969. Whenever any person in this State conveys any real property by deed to secure any debt to any person loaning or advancing said Argument for Plaintiff in Error. Our declaration set forth the mortgage, and prayed that the defendant might be required to answer it. This was not a prayer for a monetary judgment, but that he answer to all the allegations. Under the Code of Georgia (Sec. 3082), equitable remedies, such as the establishment of liens, can be given in an action at law. The great thing we sued for was to get a judgment establishing our right to levy on the lands conveyed by the deed. In bringing this action we were pursuing the first stage in the proceeding. We could not realize on our security without first getting a personal judgment on the notes; and the levy of final process, whereby we should realize on our security, vender any money, or to secure any other debt, and shall take a bond for titles back to said vender upon the payment of such debt or debts, or shall in like manner convey any personal property by bill of sale, and take an obligation binding the person to whom said property was conveyed to reconvey said property upon the payment of said debt or debts, such conveyance of real or personal property shall pass the title of said property to the vendee, (provided that the consent of the wife has been first obtained,) till the debt or debts which said conveyance was made to secure shall be fully paid, and shall be held by the courts of this State to be an absolute conveyance with the right reserved by the vender to have said property reconveyed to him upon the payment of the debt or debts intended to be secured, agreeable to the terms of the contract, and not a mortgage. "SEC. 1970. When any judgment shall be rendered in any of the courts of this State upon any note or other evidence of debt, which such conveyance of realty was made and intended to secure, it shall and may be lawful for the vendee to make and file and have recorded in the clerk's office of the superior court of the county wherein the land lies, a good and sufficient deed of conveyance to the defendant for said land; and if the said obligor be dead, then his executor or administrator may, in like manner, make and file such deed without obtaining an order of the court for that purpose, whereupon the same may be levied on and sold under said judgment as in other cases: Provided, that the said judgment shall take lien upon the land prior to any other judgment or encumbrance against the defendant. ` SEC. 1971. The vender's rights to a reconveyance of the property upon his complying with the contract, shall not be affected by any liens, encumbrances or rights which would otherwise attach to the property by virtue of the title being in the vendee; but the right of the vender to a reconveyance shall be absolute and permanent upon his complying with his contract with the vendee according to the terms." "SEC. 2057, f. All titles to property made as a part of an usurious contract, or to evade the laws against usury, are void." Argument for Plaintiff in Error. was the last stage of the action. Had this been an ordinary action of assumpsit the averments as to the real estate would have been impertinent. As it was they were material, if not vital. Napier v. Saulsbury, 63 Georgia, 477, 480. The plea of usury attacked not only our right to recover judgment for the full sum we demanded, but our right to levy final process on the judgment, upon the land conveyed to secure the debt. The verdict for the defendant upon this plea, in other words, not only reduced our debt by $2300, which of itself might not have authorized proceedings in error, but prevented our availing ourselves of a security worth $22,500, which we claimed for the entire debt, which debt, in any point of view, exceeded $5000. Usury did not avoid the notes, but it did altogether avoid the deed, and therefore this remedy upon it by final process, by the express provisions of the code. McLaren v. Clark, 80 Georgia, 423; Small v. Hicks, 81 Georgia, 691. It also avoids the waiver of the homestead exemption, contained in the notes. Cleghorn v. Greeson, 77 Georgia, 343. In view of the statutory provisions governing this action, it seems to us evident that it is one "where the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeds the sum or value of five thousand dollars," because the matter in dispute was our right to a judgment, on which to found a levy on certain described lands worth $22,500, to collect a debt exceeding $5000. The case does not belong in the class of Elgin v. Marshall, 106 U. S. 578, and The Sydney, 139 U. S. 331. It is not one where the judgment is complained of because in some other case it will have a probative force against us. Here the matter directly in dispute between the parties was whether we were entitled to a judgment carrying a specific lien on specified real estate described in the declaration, and enforceable on final process, in this very suit, to be executed by a sale of that real estate agreeably to that lien. A case somewhat analogous is that of Stinson v. Dousman, 20 How. 461, from Minnesota Territory. There a suit was brought for rent by way of damages for breach of a contract of sale where possession had been given and afterwards the Opinion of the Court. contract had, as the plaintiff claimed, been terminated. The defendant's answer denied any breach of contract, and asked for a judgment affirming the continuing validity of the contract. Judgment was rendered for the plaintiff to recover less than $1000. At that time $1000 was the limit of jurisdiction on writs of error to territorial courts, and the question of jurisdiction was thus disposed of in this court. "The defendant in error objected that the matter in dispute was not of the value of one thousand dollars, and therefore this court had no jurisdiction of the cause. The objection might well be founded, if this was to be regarded merely as an action at common law. But the equitable as well as the legal considerations involved in the cause are to be considered. The effect of the judgment is to adjust the legal and equitable claims of the parties to the subject of the suit. The subject of the suit is not merely the amount of rent claimed, but the title of the respective parties to the land under the contract. The contract shows that the matter in dispute was valued by the parties at eight thousand dollars." Stinson v. Dousman, 20 How. 461, 466. This case was referred to with approval in Elgin v. Marshall, 106 U. S. on page 581. The title under our deed, or the right which we claimed to sell the land embraced in our deed to satisfy such judgment as we might recover, was in legal effect denied by the plea of usury; and the judgment rendered on that plea necessarily operates "in denial of the right claimed by the company which is of far greater value than the sum which, by the act of Congress, is the limit below which an appeal is not allowable." Market Co. v. Hoffman, 101 U. S. 112, 113. No appearance for the defendant in error. MR. JUSTICE BROWN delivered the opinion of the court. From the above statement of facts it is clear that, while the plaintiff sued to recover $8500 and interest, he actually recovered $6800 and interest and attorney fees, amounting in all to $9725.66, so that the amount actually in dispute between Opinion of the Court. the parties in this court is the difference between the amount claimed and the amount of the verdict. Computing interest at eight per cent upon the entire amount of the notes and adding an attorney fee of ten per cent, the amount due according to the plaintiff's theory was approximately $12,155, or $2429.34 more than the amount recovered. This is the proper method of ascertaining the amount in dispute in this court. Tintsman v. National Bank, 100 U. S. 6; Jenness V. Citizens' National Bank of Rome, 110 U. S. 52; Wabash, St. Louis &c. Railway v. Knox, 110 U. S. 304; Hilton v. Dickinson, 108 U. S. 165. It is true that, under the Code of Georgia, section 2057, subdivision f, "all titles to property made as a part of an usurious contract, or to evade the laws against usury, are void." The Supreme Court of Georgia has construed this as rendering a deed infected with usury void as title, and depriving the holder of the right of recovery of the land against the maker. Carswell v. Hartridge, 55 Georgia, 412; Johnson v. Griffin Banking Co., 55 Georgia, 691. It was said in Broach v. Smith, 75 Georgia, 159, that usury not only destroys the legal title, but prevents the deed from ever being treated as an equitable mortgage. It appears in this case that the value of the property conveyed as security is $22,500, and under the laws of Georgia it may be that the finding of usury may have the effect of invalidating the deed given as security for the loan. Assuming this to be true, however, it is not the immediate result of the judgment in this case. The provisions of the Georgia code with respect to real estate security for loans are somewhat peculiar. The practice is for the person receiving the loan to convey the real property by deed to the person loaning or advancing the money, and to take a bond for title back to the vendor upon the payment of the debt, and by section 1969 "such conveyance of real or personal property shall pass the title of said property to the vendee till the debt or debts which said conveyance was made to secure shall be fully paid," etc. By section 1970, "when any judgment shall be rendered in any of the courts of this State upon any note or other evidence of debt which said conveyance of realty was |