Court Opinion

ID: 9454906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:03:29.021347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:22.357524
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
Before COLEMAN and SIMPSON, Circuit Judges, and MEHRTENS, District Judge.
PER CURIAM:
The appellees -have filed a Petition for Rehearing En Bknc. Nothing in the petition or the briefs has convinced us that the original opinion and the result reached are in error.
For the sake of clarity, however, and to avoid any misunderstanding as to our holding, we point out that the action was based upon Article 5073, Texas Statutes, which provides that if a greater rate of interest than that fixed by statute, or if no other rate is so fixed, then 10% per annum shall have been received or collected upon any contract, the person paying the same may recover double the amount of interest so paid by an action of debt; that Article 5070, Texas Statutes, provides that where the parties specify no particular rate of interest, then the rate shall be 6%. We held that Article 5070 does not declare rates between 6% and 10% to be usurious or supersede or amend Article 5073 and that under the statutes the parties had no action for double recovery unless the amount received or collected was 10% per annum or more. In this case the rate of interest received and collected amounted to 7.3978% per annum, and since it was less than 10% per annum, there was no right to double recovery under Article 5073. As to the right to recover interest received and collected in excess of 6% per annum, the plaintiffs did not sue on that theory and the case was not tried on that theory.
Accordingly, the Petition for Rehearing is denied, and no member of this panel nor any judge in regular active service on the Court having requested that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc (Rule 35, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure; Local Fifth Circuit Rule 12), the Petition for Rehearing En Banc is denied.