Court Opinion

ID: 9632180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:06:04.235205+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:49.385718
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice.
I concur. It is natural enough to sympathize with the plaintiff, who is not in the money lending business, because of the loss of his loan. But we are here dealing not only with the parties to the instant transaction, but with principles which must apply uniformly to lenders and borrowers of money.
The statutes proscribing usury were enacted for a beneficial purpose: to prevent the exaction of exorbitant charges for the use of money. The penalty of forfeiture of the debt is severe but salutary. It is appreciated that the invocation of such penalty should not be done lightly, and that the defense will not be allowed unless there is a “corrupt or unlawful intent to violate the usury statute.”1 Notwithstanding the foregoing, all that is required is that the evidence show clearly and unequivocally that the lender knowingly charges interest at a rate in excess of that permitted by law;2 he must be presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his act and held to suffer the consequences.3
*555Once the requirements of the foregoing rule have been met, it is improper to permit the lender to seek around for every possible excuse to avoid the consequences of his conduct ; to do so would nullify the effects of the usury statute. It is of no avail to theorize that if Mr. Rossberg had sold his equity in the property to the Holesapples for $100, there would have been no usury. We cannot indulge in any assumption that it either was or might have been such a sale. The case was not tried on that theory; the evidence does not show that to be the fact; the evidence is that Rossberg told the Holesapples that “they would have to agree to pay sixteen hundred dollars for the fifteen hundred.” The trial court found that the charge of the extra $100 was for interest on the loan of the money. This finding is supported by substantial competent evidence, wherefore this court is powerless to disturb it.
The same process of reasoning destroys the suggestion that perhaps it was worth $100 (the usurious portion thereof) for Rossberg to go to Logan to get the money. If a lender of money is going to make charges for additional services in connection with a loan, he should be required to prove that he is entitled to such charges by proof sufficient to permit him to recover upon a theory of contract for such services. It would have to appear either (a) that the parties expressly agreed that the usurious charge was to be paid to Rossberg for the purpose of going to Logan to obtain the money or (b) that the circumstances were such that an implied contract to pay for such services existed. The evidence does not show either express or implied contract and the court made no such finding, but found to the contrary.
The trial court’s findings, being supported by substantial competent evidence, cannot now be disturbed; that being so, his conclusion that the loan was usurious is likewise unassailable.

Cobb v. Hartenstein, 47 Utah 174, 152 P. 424, 428.

Smith v. Parsons, 55 Minn. 520, 57 N. W. 311.

See 22 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 35, p. 93.