Court Opinion

ID: 9530925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:05:16.988597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:17.569122
License: Public Domain

Hale, J.
(concurring specially) — I have signed the court’s opinion and concur in all of its implications except that part which implies that Hafer v. Spaeth, 22 Wn.2d 378, 156 P.2d 408 (1945), is not explicitly overruled. Despite the disparate analyses set forth in both the majority and the concurring-dissenting opinions, Hafer, I think, should be overruled and I would explicitly say so.
Hafer■ should be overruled because its reported facts do not, in my opinion, support the court’s legal conclusion. There, a piano was sold on what is described as a conditional sale contract calling for payments of principal at $5 per month plus an additional $3.50 per month for “handling charges.” It was this handling charge — whether for handling the weekly payments or the piano is not completely clear — which gave rise to that case. Thus, of $8.50 paid each month, only $5 was applied to the debt and the $3.50 paid nothing except the “handling charge” which, according to the Hafer opinion, would continue to accrue until the principal balance had been finally paid off by the $5 monthly allotment. In what appears to me to have been an erroneous conclusion, this court, I think, misconstrued the language of the usury statute to hold that the $3.50 described as handling charges each month, that is $3.50 each month for handling the other $5, did not constitute usury because the statute, it was said, did not apply to the sale of goods on conditional sale but only to the loan of money. Hafer v. Spaeth, supra at 383. That opinion, I think, ignores the express language of the statute which says:
Any rate of interest not exceeding twelve (12) per centum per annum agreed to in writing by the parties to *417the contract, shall be legal, and no person shall directly or indirectly take or receive in money, goods or thing in action, or in any other way, any greater interest, sum or value for the loan or forbearance of any money, goods or thing in action than twelve (12) per centum per annum.
(Italics mine.) Laws of 1899, ch. 80, § 2, p. 128.3
That statute, as I see it, should have been read then and should be read now in pari materia with RCW 19.52.010, which says:
Every loan or forbearance of money, goods, or thing in action shall bear interest at the rate of six percent per annum where no different rate is agreed to in writing between the parties. The discounting of commercial paper, where the borrower makes himself liable as maker, guarantor or indorser, shall be considered as a loan for the purposes of this act.
In speaking of every loan or forbearance of money, goods or thing in action, the statute expressly included not only the forbearance to repossess the goods so long as the handling charges are paid each month, but encompasses the discounting of commercial paper (RCW 19.52.010), and in addition explicitly prohibits more than 12 per cent interest, directly or indirectly. RCW 19.52.020. To complete the bar, the statute in direct language prohibits in any other way any greater interest, sum or value for the loan or forbearance of any money or goods. To me, the conclusion is inescapable that both the sale of a piano as in Hafer or an automobile as in this case are transactions covered by the usury statute.
Finley and Wright, JJ., concur with Hale, J.

Laws of 1899, ch. 80, § 2, p. 128, were amended by Laws of 1967, Ev. Ses., ch. 23, § 4, p. 1510, which is not material here.