Court Opinion

ID: 9832882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:16:42.007302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:54.861957
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[11] Appellant insists that, as the original debt in his hands was freed from taint *706of usury by the doctrine of estoppel, it was error to not allow interest on the same, notwithstanding the subsequent agreements of 1900 and 1903 are usurious. It is correct that a contract valid in its inception is not rendered invalid by subsequent usurious transactions in connection therewith, and action may be brought on the original valid obligation. Cousins v. Grey, 60 Tex. 349; Harn v. Building Ass’n, 95 Tex. 79, 65 S. W. 176; Krause v. Pope, 78 Tex. 478, 14 S. W. 616; Loan & Trust Co. v. Fuller, 26 Tex. Civ. App. 318, 63 S. W. 555. But here the action could not be said to be on the original obligation as such, so as to recover the principal and lawful contract interest. The amended petition set up, in order to pass over the plea of limitation against the original note and contract, that on January 16, 1900, the very day of acquisition by appellant of the original contract, there' was entered into a renewal or extension note, and a renewal or extension again in 1903, and again by letter in 1907. Having set up and relied on the renewal notes in order to recover, the action must be said to be on such renewal notes, and not on the original note or original obligation as such. Part of the consideration in the extension or renewal notes was shown to be usurious, and part was the renewal of the original debt.
[12] As the action was on the renewal notes, and such extensions or renewals of the principal sum at an illegal rate of interest being usurious agreements, then no interest from the date of such agreement was recoverable, though the principal indebtedness, being valid, was recoverable; for usury under the statute is not the excess above whát might lawfully have been collected, but the whole amount of interest. Smith v. Chilton, 90 Tex. 447, 39 S. W. 287. There was no interest due nor claimed, according to the record, before the date of the usurious extension of 1900.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.