Case Name: Moe SILVERSTEIN and Minnie Silverstein, his wife, Appellants, v. Clinton C. WAKEFIELD and Ruth Wakefield, his wife, Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1959-05-21
Citations: 112 So. 2d 406
Docket Number: No. 58-691
Parties: Moe SILVERSTEIN and Minnie Silverstein, his wife, Appellants, v. Clinton C. WAKEFIELD and Ruth Wakefield, his wife, Appellees.
Judges: CARROLL, CHAS., C. J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 112
Pages: 406–411

Head Matter:
Moe SILVERSTEIN and Minnie Silverstein, his wife, Appellants, v. Clinton C. WAKEFIELD and Ruth Wakefield, his wife, Appellees.
No. 58-691.
District Court of Appeal of Florida. Third District.
May 21, 1959.
Rehearing Denied June 17, 1959.
Monroe Gelb, Miami, for appellants.
Julius H. Erstling, Miami, for appellees.

Opinion:
HORTON, Judge.
This is an appeal from a final decree in chancery in which the chancellor found that a $2,000 mortgage and note, given by the appellees to the appellants, was usurious.
The appellees were the owners of certain real property in Dade County, Florida, and desired to obtain a $2,500 loan thereon. In response to an advertisement of the Sunshine Mortgage Company, mortgage brokers, the appellees applied for a $2,500 loan. The Sunshine Mortgage Company then solicited the appellants to lend $2,500 on the appellees' property. After looking at the property, the appellants advised the mortgage company that they would lend $2,000 on the property at 10% interest. This was agreeable with the appellees and subsequently they consummated a $2,000 loan evidenced by a note in that amount, secured by a mortgage on their real property, payable at the rate of $30 per month for three years, with the balance payable at the end of the three-year period with interest at 10%. Prior to the showing of the property to the appellants by an employee of the mortgage company, the appellees had entered into a written contract of employment whereby they were to pay to the mortgage company $600 as brokerage and expenses for obtaining the loan. As a result of the transaction, the appellees received the total sum of $1,400 from the $2,000 loan. After making 33 monthly payments in the sum of $30 each, or a total of $990, the appel-lees instituted a suit, the purpose of which was to declare the note and mortgage null and void on the ground that the same was usurious. The appellants answered the complaint and also counterclaimed, praying the court to grant them a decree of foreclosure for a balance of $1,564.75 allegedly due under the mortgage and note then in default. The cause went to trial 'before the chancellor and resulted in the decree from which this appeal was prosecuted.
The appellants' main attack on the decree centers around the finding by the chancellor in his decree that appellants and the Sunshine Mortgage Company conspired to extract from the appellees an exorbitant brokerage commission in connection with the mortgage loan while said mortgage company was acting as agent of the appellants. The chancellor in effect by his decree found that the Sunshine Mortgage Company was the agent of the appellant-lenders, and that, as such, the transaction was usurious. The evidence and testimony adduced at the trial disclose that the appellants were solicited by the Sunshine Mortgage Company to make the loan; that the appellants agreed to make the loan and deposited with their attorney, who had no connection with the Sunshine Mortgage Company, the sum of $2,000; and that thereafter the appellants appeared to have nothing further to do with the transaction. The attorney for the appellants then proceeded to deduct $50 for his fee from the $2,000 deposited with him by the appellants, and remitted the balance of $1,950 to the Sunshine Mortgage Company to be disbursed to the appellees. There was no evidence that the appellants received any rebate or refund from the mortgage company or any other consideration from anyone, other than the 10% interest agreed to be paid on the loan by the appellees under the terms of the note and mortgage. There was evidence of a failure on the part of the Sunshine Mortgage Company to account for the sum of $150 listed in the closing statement of disbursement as commission, but no indication that appellants received any part of it. The Sunshine Mortgage Company did, after the execution of the mortgage and note, collect the monthly payments for the appellants and remit the same to them. Other than that, there appear to be no contacts between the appellants and the mortgage company. This was the first transaction in which the appellants had supplied mortgage money through the Sunshine Mortgage Company, although it does appear that they subsequently made loans through that company to borrowers.
The chancellor in his decree, inter alia, said:
"Agency in a case of this kind is extremely difficult to prove, especially where the parties on one side are shrewd business people and those on the other are ignorant working folk. As above pointed out, the transaction was clearly usurious. There is no adequate way of punishing the Sunshine Mortgage Co. or its officials. Silverstein's testimony was not at all convincing. While he categorically denied any connection with the transaction, except the payment of $2,000.00 to his attorney, Mr. Keith, his petulance and irritability on the stand shook his testimony considerably."
Obviously, from his statement, the chancellor was incensed at the overreaching that had been practiced on the appellees. However, no matter how sympathetic the chancellor, or we, may feel toward the position of the appellees, nevertheless, we are required to apply certain principles of law to the facts. In this instance, the chancellor's decree collides head on and conflicts with certain well established principles laid down by the Supreme Court of this State. The facts in this case are almost parallel to the facts in the cases of Shaffran v. Holness, Fla.1957, 93 So.2d 94, and Shaffran v. Holness, Fla.App.1958, 102 So.2d 35. In these cases there was evidence of a loan application and a brokerage contract, by the terms of which the borrowers engaged the United Mortgage Company to act for them in procuring a second mortgage loan, and agreed to pay United Mortgage Company a certain sum for its services and the costs incident to the loan. An attorney handled the transaction on behalf of his client after the client had deposited the total sum of the monies to be loaned with his attorney. The court said (102 So.2d 35, at page 39):
"In Jones v. Hammock, 131 Fla. 321, 179 So. 674, 675, it was said, 'This court has held that one of the requisites of a usurious transaction is that there must exist a corrupt intent to take more than the legal rate for the use of money loaned (Clark v. Grey, 101 Fla. 1058, 132 So. 832), and that usury is largely a matter of intent and is not fully determined by the fact of whether the lender actually gets more than the law permits, but whether there was a purpose in his mind to get more than legal interest for the use of his money (Benson v. First Trust & Savings Bank, 105 Fla. 135, 134 So. 493, 142 So. 887, 145 So. 182). Also to work a forfeiture under the statute the principal must knowingly or wil-fully charge or accept more than the amount of interest prohibited. Chandler v. Kendrick, 108 Fla. 450, 146 So. 551, 552,' Argintar v. Lydell, 132 Fla. 45, 180 So. 346.
"One of the established principles governing the payment of commissions to agents in connection with loans is that 'when one negotiates a loan through a third party, with a money lender, and the latter, bona fide, lends the money at a legal rate of interest, the contract is not made usurious merely by the fact that the intermediary charges the borrower with a heavy commission; the intermediary having no legal or established connection with the lender, as agent.1 52 A.L.R.2d 708. " (Emphasis supplied.)
Although we conclude that the chancellor in the case at bar was in error in his application of' the law to the evidence, we nevertheless do not wish to be understood as sanctioning transactions of this character, which, on their face, though legally correct, are unconscionable. Certainly the chancellor was justified in being incensed over a transaction involving a loan of $2,000 where the undisputed testimony clearly showed that the borrower received no more than $1,400. Then after paying $990 on a $2,000 loan, he was still faced with a demand for more than $1,500. However, it is not our province to recast the law, and particularly that which is governed by specific statutory enactments. In such instances, the remedy lies with the legislature.
Accordingly, the decree appealed from is-reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith.
Reversed and remanded.
CARROLL, CHAS., C. J., concurs.
PEARSON, J., dissents.