Court Opinion

ID: 9828320
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:17:32.958494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:47.155196
License: Public Domain

On Motion of Appellant for Additional Findings of Fact and for a Rehearing.
As stated in the opinion affirming the judgment, it was stipulated in the four notes dated October 22, 1914, that interest at the rate of 10 per cent, per annum should be paid annually in advance on the respective amounts thereof. It was not stated in said opinion, but is now: (1) That the note due October 22, 1915, bore interest from its date, and that the other three each bore interest from October 22, 1915. (2) That it was stipulated in the notes that interest accruing on the amounts thereof, if not paid when due, should also bear interest at the rate of 10 per cent, per annum from the time when such interest became due. (3) That it was stipulated, further, that failure to pay any of the notes, or any installment of interest thereon, when due, would entitle the holder to treat all the notes as due. (4) That no provision was made “for the interest (quoting from the motion for additional findings of fact) not earned to be remitted to the maker of the notes in case the notes were declared to be due before the time elapsed for which interest had been paid or charged.”
It has been held (and the holding in Parks v. Lubbock, 92 Tex. 635, 51 S. W. 322, cited by appellant, is not to the contrary) that neither a stipulation that interest should be paid in advance (Geisberg v. Loan Ass’n [Tex. Oiv. App.] 60 S. W. 478), nor a stipulation that interest should be paid on past-due interest (Crider v. Loan Ass'n, 89 Tex. 597, 35 S. W. 1047), nor a stipulation authorizing the holder of a series of notes to declare all of them payable on the failure of the maker to pay any of them, or interest on any of them, will render a contract usurious. 27 R. C. L. 234.
 A simple calculation will show that performance by appellant of the contract according to its terms as evidenced by the four notes above referred to would not have required him to pay interest in excess of 10 per cent, per annum for use of the $990 represented by the notes. “The test of usury in a contract (it was said in Webb on Usury, §. 29} is whether it would if (fully) performed, resuit in securing a greater rate of profit on the subject-matter than is allowed by law.” Note to Smithwick v. Whitley, 28 L. R. A. (N. S.) 113. According to that test, the contract in question here was not usurious on its face. And we think the trial court had a right to conclude from the evidence that it did not appear that any interest was paid on the notes in advance, and, further, that, while it appeared the note for $240 due October 22,1915, was paid in full, and that $290.20 was paid on the other notes February 23. 1926. it did not *926appear that appellant ever paid any other sum on account of the principal of such other notes.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.