Court Opinion

ID: 9846253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:37:52.034565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:36.466708
License: Public Domain

Justice Higgins
dissenting in part.
I am in full accord with the well documented opinion except in one particular. The opinion, I think, correctly states the rule with respect to the penalty which the law permits the debtor to exact as a result of his usurious contract. The penalty *537is the forfeiture of all interest. If any interest is actually paid, the debtor is entitled to recover twice the amount so paid.
The court correctly holds: (1) The contract here involved carries a usurious rate of interest; (2) “It becomes simply a loan which in law bears no interest.” The trial court by Findings of Fact No. 19 established, “That the plaintiff, Jonas W. Kessing Company, has heretofore paid to National Mortgage Corporation as interest (emphasis added) on the subject loan transaction the aggregate sum of Twenty Five Thousand and no/100 Dollars ($25,000.00) . . . .” The court says that the $25,000.00 paid, no interest being due, should be credited on the principal.
I have no trouble whatever following the opinion up to this point, but I do not agree with that part of the opinion which says “We hold, therefore, that the plaintiffs are not entitled to recover double the amount of the interest paid on this loan and that the trial court erred in so holding.” In my opinion legal interest cannot accrue on a contract which provides for the payment of usury and such payment when made entitles the payor to the return of the amount paid (or a credit on the principal debt) and an equal amount as a penalty for the illegal exaction.
I vote to affirm the judgment of the superior court.