61 N.H. 147 | N.H. | 1881
These are actions to recover the penalty for receiving usurious interest, under Gen. Laws, c. 232, s. 3, which provides that "If any person, upon any contract, receives interest at a higher rate than six per cent., he shall forfeit three times the sum so received in excess of six per cent., to the person aggrieved who will sue therefor." The defendants in each case received of *148 the plaintiff usurious interest upon the same debt or contract, upon one occasion less than a year, and upon several occasions more than a year, prior to the date of the writ. The principal question is, whether the plaintiff's action, in so far as it relates to the latter instances, is barred by the statute of limitations (G. L., c. 266, s. 10), which provides that "All suits or prosecutions founded upon any penal statute, which are wholly or in part for the use of the prosecutor, shall be brought within one year * * * after the commission of the offence, unless otherwise specially provided."
The plaintiff contends, that inasmuch as "the entire offence of receiving usurious interest at different times (previous to the commencement of legal proceedings) upon the same contract constitutes but one cause of action, and cannot be split into different suits, nor into separate counts of the same suit" (Kempton v. Savings Institution.
The contract mentioned in the statute is not the contract to pay and receive the excessive interest, as the defendant contends, but the contract upon which the interest is received. It is immaterial that there is no contract to pay and receive illegal interest, and that it is voluntarily paid: the offence consists in receiving it.
Judgment for the plain
ALLEN and CLARK, JJ., did not sit: the others concurred.