Court Opinion

ID: 9832634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:04:32.23355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:49.817920
License: Public Domain

On Appellee’s Motion for Rehearing.
It is insisted that since the mortgage given to secure the notes sued on and on which the judgment was based recited that those notes were given in renewal and extension of prior vendor’s lien notes on the same property, plaintiff was entitled to recover on those vendor’s lien notes unaffected by the usury in the renewal notes, under the rule of decisions announced in Cain v. Bonner, 108 Tex. 399, 194 5. W. 1098, 3 A. L. R. 874; Federal Mortgage Co. v. State National Bank (Tex. Civ. App.) 254 S. W. 1002; Bernheisel v. Firmin, 22 Wall. (99 U. S.) 170, 22 L. Ed. 766.
However, in Cain v. Bonner, supra, in an opinion by Chief Justice Phillips, the following was said:
“As originally brought, this suit was by W. 6. Cain for a balance due, with interest, upon a mechanics lien contract in the amount of $3,000.00 executed by Charles T. Bonner and wife in favor of one James Bothwell. It was instituted more than four years after the maturity of the contract. Special exceptions urged by the Bonners to the petition on the ground of limitation were sustained. Thereupon, the plaintiff, on February 22, 1911, by an amended petition set up respective written acknowledgments and renewals of the debt executed by the Bonners in his favor, and also its acknowledgment by Charles T. Bonner through a letter.
“The original contract given Bothwell provided for interest at the conventional rate from its maturity. The renewal obligations given plaintiff stipulated for the payment of interest at a usurious rate. The defense of usury was made. * * *
“When in an action for debt a new promise is relied upon to avoid a plea of limitation, such promise whether made before or after the bar is complete, constitutes the cause of action and must be declared upon for a recovery. Since the statute, when pleaded, makes a recovery upon the'barred debt impossible, reliance upon the new promise to overcome limitation necessarily makes of it the cause of action. Otherwise there is no cause of action that may be enforced. * * *
“Having declared upon the renewal agreements, the plaintiff’s right of recovery was measured by them. He could not avail himself of their benefits without subjecting his action to the defenses which they afforded. The ordinary principles of estoppel would deny to him the appropriation of only their favorable results. With the suit resting upon them, their usurious character was necessarily an available defense. It was therefore proper to apply the usurious interest collected by the plaintiff under them to the reduction of the principal of his debt, as was done by the Court of Civil Appeals [149 S. W. 702J in its judgment.”
As pointed out in our opinion on original hearing, plaintiff’s suit was upon the renewal notes and not upon the original vendor’s lien notes, and therefore subject to the defense of usury which was pleaded. That conelusion is expressly sustained by the foregoing decision of our Supreme Court; and that would be true even if plaintiff had expressly declared on the original vendor’s lien notes in an alternative or amended pleading; to say nothing of a probable additional defense of limitation to the vendor’s lien notes, “if the case should be remanded for the purpose of permitting an amended pleading decláring on those notes.
Accordingly, the motion for rehearing is overruled.