Court Opinion

ID: 9831958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:30:13.888604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:39.943339
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
We think we were correct in the holding that the interest recoverable on a judgment is properly denominated “interest” as that term is used in our statutes fixing jurisdiction of the courts. A consideration of the cases of Baker v. Smelser, 88 Tex. 26, 29 S. W. 378, 33 L. R. A. 163, and Schulz v. Tessman, 92 Tex. 488, 49 S. W. 1031, in connection with the provisions of title 72, Interest, of our Revised Statutes, shows that the word “interest,” as it is used in the statutes on jurisdiction, does not necessarily refer to contractual interest, as contended by appel-lee. In the case of Baker v. Smelser, supra, it is said:
“When tbe statute does not expressly provide for the recovery of the interest, it is allowed not eo nomine, that is, not as interest, but merely as damages. It would probably be more correct to say that rate of interest is resorted to, in order to measure the damages accruing from the loss of the use of tbe money, as in the case of conversion of money, so in the case of the conversion of goods, and in many others in which the statute does not expressly create a legal liability for interest. * * • Recurring, then, to the provision of the Constitution now under consideration, we are of the opinion that it was intended to apply to cases in which interest is expressly given by statute, and not those in which the rate of interest is merely taken as a standard by which to measure in part the damages to be recovered.”
Referring to the title “Interest,” the same being title 72 of the Revised Statutes, we find that the first article of this title defines interest as:
“The compensation allowed by law or fixed by tbe parties to a contract for the use or forbearance or detention of money.”
Subsequent articles of the title provide for the rate of interest on written contracts ascertaining the sum payable when not specified by the contract, upon accounts, etc., and article 4981 expressly provides that the judgments of the several courts of this state shall bear interest at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum, etc. The interest accruing on such a judgment is as clearly interest as that accruing on the written contract or open account, as provided by other articles of this title of the statute.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.
HUFF, O. J., not sitting, being absent in Austin with committee of judges passing on applications for writs of error.