Court Opinion

ID: 9614967
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:29:56.153173+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:40.823506
License: Public Domain

Sognier, Chief Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur fully. I write to explain my agreement with the majority’s conclusion, in Division 4, that all of the elements necessary to show usury are present in this case, particularly the showing that there existed a “loan or forbearance of money.” I have found only one Georgia case in which usury was found to exist where the underlying obligation was a forbearance of money rather than a loan, note, or mortgage: in Plastics Dev. Corp. v. Flexible Prods. Co., 112 Ga. App. 460 (145 SE2d 655) (1965), we noted that a contract calling for interest at a rate greater than that allowed by law for delayed payments on an account was usurious. Black’s Law Dictionary (5th ed., p. 580) defines “forbearance” as an “[a]ct by which [a] creditor waits for payment of [a] debt due him by [a] debtor after it becomes due ... [or a] delay in enforcing rights.” As it is undisputed in the case sub judice that the assessments forming the principal sued on here were overdue, it follows that the delay in collection was a forbearance on the part of the association, and thus the necessary elements of usury existed.