Case ID: wash_125/html/0368-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mitchell, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 17794.
    Department One.
    June 26, 1923.]
    J. W. Smith, Respondent, v. G. P. Deane et al., Defendants, T. E. Flint et al., Appellants. 
      
    
    Interest (19, 27)—Bills and Notes (143)—Amount of Recovery —Statutes. In an action upon a promissory note providing that if not paid when due, it shall draw interest at the rate of 12% per annum from maturity, in which the complaint demanded 12% interest and a stipulation authorized judgment according to the demand of the complaint, judgment is properly entered for interest at the rate of 10% per annum, in view of Rem. Comp. Stat., § 457, providing that judgments on written contracts providing for the payment of interest shall hear interest at the rate specified, hut not in any case to exceed 10% per annum.
    Appeal from a judgment of the superior court for King county, Hall, J., entered March 3, 1922, upon findings in favor of the plaintiff, in an action on a promissory note, tried to the court.
    Affirmed.
    
      H. A. Martin, for appellants.
    
      Hartman & Hartman, for respondent.
    
      
      Reported in 216 Pac. 6.
    
   Mitchell, J.

This action is on a $2,000 matured promissory note which provides, among other things, as follows: “And if interest is not paid when the same is due, or if principal is not paid at maturity, then the interest and principal to draw interest from maturity hereof until paid at the rate of twelve per cent per annum.” Judgment was demanded in the sum of $2,000, together with interest at the rate of twelve per cent per annum from the date of the maturity of the note. After the appearances and answers of certain of the defendants, a written stipulation was entered into between them and the plaintiff by the terms of which defendants waived their rights under their answers and the plaintiff gave a specified time in which the defendants were entitled to pay. The stipulation further provided that in case payment was not so made, then judgment should be entered against the defendants, and each of them, in the full amount prayed for in the complaint. Upon default in making the payment as provided for in the stipulation, the plaintiff took judgment for the amount due, with the further recital therein that the judgment bear interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum.

Certain of the defendants have appealed, claiming that, under the terms of the stipulation, together- with the prayer of the complaint, the plaintiff was entitled to interest on the primary amount of the judgment at only six per cent per annum, under the general statutory rule given in the latter part of § 457, Rem.-. Comp. Stat. [P. C. § 3160.] However, the note provided for interest at the rate of twelve per cent per annum until paid. At the date of the note the statute, § 457 of the code, was and still is in effect. It says that judgments on written contracts providing for the payment of interest until paid at a specified rate shall bear interest at the rate specified in such contracts, not in any case, however, to exceed ten per cent per annum. The rate of interest in the judgment is in exact accord with the terms of the contract, governed and controlled by the statute, and is fully warranted by the facts stated in the complaint and justified by the prayer.

Judgment affirmed.

Main, C. J., Holcomb, Bridges, and Mackintosh, JJ., concur.