Court Opinion

ID: 9829209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:05:24.665204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:58.365060
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Upon consideration of appellant’s motion for rehearing in this cause, we have concluded that we were in error in our original opinion, wherein we held the same rule of limitation would apply as against his dual action, wherein he sought a recovery (1) for the statutory penalty for usurious interest paid, and (2) in the alternative for the recovery of excess paid on the indebtedness after applying all interest paid to the principal. We therefore withdraw from the original opinion the following parts thereof:
1. “This brings us to a consideration of the question: Was plaintiff’s action for usury barred by the 2-year statute of limitation when the suit was instituted? The same rule would be applicable whether the suit was for the statutory penalty’or for an application of all interest.”
We here substitute in lieu of that paragraph the following:
This brings us to a consideration of the question: Was that part of plaintiff’s suit to recover the statutory penalty for having paid usurious interest barred by the statutes of limitation when the suit was instituted ?
2. “Under the facts shown upon the trial, the only condition under which there could have been any excess to be returned^ to the mortgagor would have been to first deduct the usurious interest paid, thereby reducing the indebtedness to that extent, and, limitation having precluded this deduction, it was proper, in calculating the indebtedness, to include the interest. If the mortgagor had lost his right to recover the usurious interest paid, he could not, by this method of claiming a refund of the excess over the debt, collect it. The mortgagor could not do indirectly what it could not do directly.’*
We here substitute in lieu of that part of our original opinion last quoted the following :
In the preceding part of this opinion we have held plaintiff’s right to recover a penalty for payment of usurious interest was barred by limitation, and it would follow that all interest so paid by him should have - been applied to the principal debt, with such application he necessarily overpaid the principal, yet it remains a fact that this overpayment was made in connection with the trustee’s sale of the security which was purchased by the defendant. By the application of all interest paid to the principal at the time of sale, such amount, if any, of the purchase price remaining over and above the indebtedness, should have been paid to the mortgagor. The purchaser, having - failed to -do this; ■was thereafter under the implied" obligation to do so. The purchaser (defendant) *558would have been under the same obligation to plaintiff if the deed of trust under which the sale was made had not contained the conditions mentioned. The obligation became a ■ debt owing to plaintiff and was controlled by the 2-year statute of limitation. Article 5073, Rev.Civ.St.1925; City of Wink v. R. B. George Machinery Co. (Tex.Civ.App.) 73 S.W.(2d) 653 (writ dismissed) and cases cited.
Motion for rehearing overruled.