Hardin v. Trimmier

Citations

• 27 S.C. 110
• 3 S.E. 46
• 1887 S.C. LEXIS 107

Syllabus

<p>1. Defendant lent plaintiff $900, charging therefor a usurious rate of interest, and afterwards. the usury law was so amended that any person who received as interest more than the- amount allowed by law was liable to forfeit double the sum so received, to be recovered by a separate action. After the enactment of this law, plaintiff paid the debt in full, according to the letter of his contract, and then brought action against defendant to recover double the amount so paid in excess of the sum borrowed. Held, that he was entitled to recover. Statutes stated and cases reviewed.</p> <p>2. The penalty for charging usurious interest is, under the act of 1877 (16 Stat., 325), a loss of the right to recover interest or costs; and the penalty for receiving usurious interest is, under the act of 1882 (18 Stat., 35), a liability to pay double the amount so received. These penalties are different and distinct.</p> <p>3. In applying the penalty for receiving, after the act of 1882 prescribing such penalty, usurious interest on a usurious contract entered into prior to that act, the act is not made to impair the obligation of the contract, nor given a retroactive effect.</p> <p>4. Under a statute forbidding the recovery on a usurious contract of any more than the principal debt, only the repayment of the principal debt is the legal contract of the parties. As to the interest charged or reserved, the contract is void.</p> <p>5. Voluntary payment of usurious interest does not estop the debtor from suing to recover the penalty prescribed' in the act of 1882; for it is only by payme.nt that he acquires a right of action under this statute.</p> <p>6. An amendment to a statute has effect from the time it becomes a law, leaving the prior law still of force as to contracts entered into before the amendment was adopted.</p> <p>7. Imposing upon a creditor a liability to pay to the debtor double the amount of usurious interest received by the creditor, to be recovered by the debtor in