Court Opinion

ID: 9640948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:19:27.518869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:34.015416
License: Public Domain

BAKER, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The majority departs from the doctrine of stare decisis.
The majority states that authority conflicts on whether a demand for usurious interest in a pleading is a “charge” of usurious interest forbidden by statute. The majority gives no hint as to where it finds the conflict. My research did not uncover any split of authority either out of this Court or among the other courts of appeals of this state which have considered the same question. The “split of authority” is an illusion which the majority employs to overrule White Motor Credit and Rick Furniture,1 It then bolsters its departure from stare decisis with a prognostication of how the Texas Supreme Court will hold on further appeal of this case. The majority’s reasoning springs from an illusion, only to vault toward a mirage.
The doctrine of stare decisis requires this Court to follow its prior decisions on this issue. Further, while the Supreme Court has avoided a direct holding on the point, it has not been silent.
First, stare decisis governs our determination of questions of law:
After a principle, rule or proposition of law has been squarely decided ..., the decision is accepted as a binding precedent by the same court or other courts of lower rank when the very point is again presented in a subsequent suit between different parties.
Swilley v. McCain, 374 S.W.2d 871, 875 (Tex.1964). This Court has ruled on the issue of whether a pleading is a “charge.” We have already considered, and rejected, the reasoning urged by the majority that a pleading cannot be a demand for usurious interest because it is addressed to the court, not the debtor. We unequivocally stated:
We decline Rick Furniture’s invitation to limit the holdings in Moore and English to those situations where a creditor makes some overt act, outside the legal process, to effect the collection of unearned interest. Such a course is inconsistent with the policies underlying the Consumer Credit Code and we refuse to deviate from the emerging line of authority maximizing consumer protection under the Act. Accordingly, we hold the filing of plaintiff’s original petition demanding the payment of sums which included unearned time-price differential constituted a “charging” in violation of articles 5069-8.01 and 8.02.
Rick Furniture, 634 S.W.2d at 740 (emphasis added). We applied the rule even more forcefully in White Motor Credit:
We begin our consideration of this appeal by addressing [appellee’s] cross-point, which contends that as a matter of law a pleading cannot constitute a “charge” of interest within the meaning of Texas usury statutes. This contention is without merit.
White Motor Credit, 708 S.W.2d at 468 (emphasis added). Moreover, other intermediate Texas appellate courts have reached the same conclusion as this Court did in White Motor Credit and Rick Furniture.2
*348On appeal of those cases where an intermediate court considered the issue, the Supreme Court, with one exception, rejected each application for writ of error. (See authorities cited in notes 1 and 2.) I recognize the pitfalls in trying to glean the Supreme Court’s view from an “n.r.e.” or a “denied” writ history. Nonetheless, whether a pleading can be a “charge” is a threshold usury issue. Over a half-dozen opportunities to correct the error, if error there is, have been presented to the Supreme Court over the last fifteen years. A series of Supreme Courts, of varied composition, has steadfastly declined to alter a rule applied by every court of appeals which has considered the question. The majority concludes from this that the Supreme Court has simply chosen not to consider the issue. I submit one may also conclude that the Supreme Court finds no error in the rule. Even if the rule is erroneous, this Court’s role in the state’s jurisprudence does not allow us to make the pronouncement.
Second, although the Supreme Court has not expressly held a pleading is a “charge,” it has not exactly been silent, either. The first intimation came in 1977 in Southwestern Investment Co. v. Mannix, 557 S.W.2d 755 (Tex.1977). The case involved multiple federal and state consumer law violations by the defendant creditor. The debtor was not in default. The creditor filed a counterclaim which sought the total payments due under its retail installment contract. The amount sought included both the unpaid balance and unearned interest. The court of appeals held that the pleading was equivalent to a prohibited acceleration of unearned interest.3 The Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals and said:
While it is clear that the court of civil appeals was correct in holding that an acceleration of unearned interest upon default in the instant case would be a violation of Article 5069-8.01, which prohibits charging usurious interest, Moore v. Sabine National Bank of Port Arthur, 527 S.W.2d 209 (Tex.Civ.App.— Austin 1975, writ ref’d n.r.e.), we need not decide whether this counterclaim asserted by [appellant] was indeed an attempt to accelerate unearned interest inasmuch as we have already found two violations of state law.
Mannix, 557 S.W.2d at 765. The Mannix court also dwelt at length on the policies underlying the Consumer Credit Code. Mannix, 557 S.W.2d at 760-61. These policies form the basis behind this Court’s holding in Rick Furniture that a pleading is a “charging” of usurious interest under the Consumer Credit Code. Rick Furniture, 634 S.W.2d at 740.
Next, the Supreme Court “assumed” that a “charge” of interest occurred when the usury appeared in a creditor’s pleading. Tyra v. Bob Carroll Constr. Co., 639 S.W.2d 690, 691 (Tex.1982). Then, in a per curiam opinion in 1984, the Supreme Court refused writ of error but expressly rejected the intermediate court’s reasoning that as a matter of law a superseded pleading is not a “charging” of interest. Petroscience Corp. v. Diamond Geophysical, Inc., 684 S.W.2d 668 (Tex.1984) (per curiam).
Finally, in an opinion joined by seven of the eight justices sitting, the Supreme Court again expressly cited Moore v. Sabine National Bank4 for the proposition that pleadings do constitute a “charging” of interest:
A unilateral act of charging occurs if the creditor enters a usurious amount of interest on a statement of account; affidavits and pleadings; demand letters; or monthly statements.... A usurious *349charge may be contained in an invoice, a letter, a ledger sheet or other book or document. The basis of the action is a claim or demand for usury made by the creditor and the vehicle for the claim or demand is immaterial except as an evi-dentiary fact.
Danziger v. San Jacinto Sav. Ass’n, 732 S.W.2d 300, 304 (Tex.1987) (citations omitted, emphasis added).
As Justice Gonzalez observed in a concurrence in which no other justice joined, the Supreme Court’s pronouncement in Danziger is dictum: it did not rely on the rule in reaching its decision. Danziger, 732 S.W.2d at 305. But the pronouncement is judicial dictum, rather than obiter dictum, and this Court must follow it. Moreover, the statements made in Tyra and Petroscience Corp. are also considered judicial dicta rather than mere obiter dicta. See Parker v. Bailey, 15 S.W.2d 1033, 1035 (Tex.Comm.App.1929, holding approved); Thomas v. Meyer, 168 S.W.2d 681, 685 (Tex.Civ.App. — San Antonio 1943, no writ).
Inferior courts are bound by a decision on a question actually determined by a higher appellate court even though the decision was not necessary to the determination of the case. Judicial dictum has a different effect on an intermediate appellate court than it has on the higher court which issued it. The Supreme Court is free to disregard its own judicial dictum. We are not. Valmont Plantations v. State, 163 Tex. 381, 355 S.W.2d 502, 503 (1962).
The majority’s statement in Danziger on the very point in issue here and its rare pronouncement upon its “n.r.e.” of Petroscience Corp. were “deliberately made for the guidance of the bench and bar upon a point of statutory construction.” Thomas, 168 S.W.2d at 685. We must give great weight to these declarations. We cannot disregard policy statements of the Supreme Court unless there is an extraordinary reason for doing so. Parker, 15 S.W.2d at 1035; Thomas, 168 S.W.2d at 685. I do not believe that an extraordinary reason exists here to ignore the Supreme Court’s direction in Tyra, Petroscience Corp., and Danziger. Nor does the case present any reason to overrule this Court’s prior decisions. The majority engages in judicial activism at its most suspect — lower court judicial activism. I cannot agree.
For these reasons, I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that pleadings alone do not constitute a “charge” of unlawful interest.
WHITHAM, McCLUNG, STEWART, LAGARDE and BURNETT, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.

. Moore v. White Motor Credit Corp., 708 S.W.2d 465 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1985, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Rick Furniture Distrib. Co. v. Kirlin, 634 S.W.2d 738 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1982, writ ref’d n.r.e.).

. See Rent America, Inc. v. Amarillo Natl Bank, 785 S.W.2d 190, 196 (Tex.App. — Amarillo 1990, writ denied); Nationwide Fin. Corp. v. English, 604 S.W.2d 458, 461 (Tex.Civ.App. — Tyler 1980, *348writ dism'd); Carr Well Service, Inc. v. Skytop Rig Co., 582 S.W.2d 500, 503 (Tex.Civ.App. — El Paso 1979, writ refd n.r.e.); General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Uresti, 553 S.W.2d 660, 663 (Tex.Civ.App. — Tyler 1977, writ refd n.r.e.); Southwestern Inv. Co. v. Mannix, 540 S.W.2d 747, 749 (Tex.Civ.App. — Waco 1976), aff'd o.g., 557 S.W.2d 755 (Tex.1977); Moore v. Sabine Nat’l Bank of Port Arthur, 527 S.W.2d 209, 212 (Tex.Civ.App. — Austin 1975, writ refd n.r.e.).

. Southwestern Inv. Co. v. Mannix, 540 S.W.2d 747, 749 (Tex.Civ.App. — Waco 1976), aff’d o.g., 557 S.W.2d 755 (Tex.1977).

. Moore v. Sabine Nat'l Bank, 527 S.W.2d 209, 212 (Tex.Civ.App. — Austin 1975, writ refd n.r. e.).