Court Opinion

ID: 9566887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:44:25.30646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:57.065559
License: Public Domain

Ingram, Justice,
concurring. I concur in the judgment reached by the majority opinion because I believe the lender can recover (in an appropriate assumpsit claim) the principal sum of cash loaned to the borrower. There is no doubt that this lender made a usurious loan and must forfeit all interest and charges on the loan contract under the statute because the loan contract is "null and void.” But the statute does not say the loan itself is void and that the borrower is therefore entitled to the windfall of retaining without repayment the actual monies loaned to him. See Ga. L. 1955, pp. 431, 445 (Act No. 219).
The cases relied on by the appellee are cases decided under the old Small Loan Act and were required by the literal terms of the statute existing at that time. This older statute, the predecessor to our present Industrial Loan Act, provided that: "If interest or charges in excess of those permitted by this Act shall be charged, contracted for or received, the contract of loan shall be null and void and the licensee shall have no right to collect or receive ány principal, interest or charges whatsoever.” Ga. L. 1920, pp. 215, 219. See also Ga. L. 1935, pp. 394, 395, for an amendment containing the same language. Under the plain provisions of these laws, the right of the lender to recover the principal amount of the loan was expressly taken away, and the earlier appellate decisions applying the statute were correct.
In 1955, the General Assembly adopted the Industrial Loan Act and specifically repealed the provisions of the earlier Small Loan Act, as amended. See Ga. L. 1955, pp. 431, 445. The penalties section of the Industrial Loan Act provides that, "Any loan contract made in violation of this Act shall be null and void.” (Sec. 20). The language of the predecessor statute authorizing a forfeiture of the principal amount of the loan, if the loan were made in violation of the statute, was omitted from the new statute. As seen, the present statute provides only that the loan contract shall be null and void. It is the loan contract which creates the obligation on the borrower to pay interest and other charges. Thus, if the loan contract requires the borrower to pay interest or other charges which are illegal, the contract, by the terms of the statute is "null and void.” Hence the lender in such circumstances forfeits all interest and charges created by the contract because, being null and void, it is unenforceable.
*828This leaves an implied obligation on the borrower to repay the actual money loaned to him. If the General Assembly had intended to require a lender to forfeit the principal sum loaned, it would have included the language from the old Small Loan Act in the New Industrial Loan Act. Since the General Assembly intentionally omitted this language from the present Act, I fail to see how the courts can do other than apply the statute as written. Certainly, we have no authority to add the needed language by judicial decree. The present statute leaves no "gap” for judicial discretion and I feel duty bound to apply the statute as the General Assembly wrote it. See Abrams v. Commercial Credit Plan, 128 Ga. App. 520, supra, noted in the majority opinion.
I am authorized to state that Justice Gunter concurs in this concurrence.