45 Md. 541 | Md. | 1877
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question arising in this case is, whether the amount due on the mortgage from the appellants to the appellee, is correctly ascertained by the order appealed from, or whether the usury in the shape of a bonus of $250, and other excessive interest, stipulated for by the contract between the parties, should he eliminated therefrom ?
The appellee insists, that the exaction of this bonus is legalized and made valid by the provisions of its charter, the Act of 1868, ch. 427. By this Act certain named individuals and their successors are incorporated under the name of “ The Maryland Land and Permanent Homestead Association of Baltimore County,” and the purpose of the association is declared to he, “the purchase, improvement, sale and leasing of land, the borrowing of money, and the loaning of money to its members and others upon collateral securities, or upon mortgage of real or leasehold property, and to insure the lives of its members and. debtors for the benefit of the association, whereby the security advanced upon may be in case of death secured to the family of the deceased.” And by the eighth section it is provided “that it shall and may he lawful for the said association to loan money upon spch interest as may he prescribed by law, for any period of time, and upon such premiums or bonus as may be agreed upon by the association and the borroiuer, and in all cases to deduct the interest and bonus, or either of them, in advance.” It is a very grave question whether, under the provisions of the Constitution of this State, and especially the fifty-seventh section of the third Article, it is competent for the Legislature, by a special law, to confer upon a corporation like this the peculiar privilege of exacting usury upon loans of money. But we do not find it necessary now to decide that important. question, because assuming the eighth section of this Act to be constitutional and valid, we are of opinion, the contract in this case is
The order appealed from must therefore be reversed, and the cause remanded, in order that an account may be stated ascertaining the true amount due on the mortgage, excluding all excessive interest exacted or paid in the shape of bonus or otherwise.
Order reversed, and cause remanded.