72 Mo. App. 48 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1897
This action is for the conversion of a diamond shirt stud valued at $200. Defendant is a pawnbroker and her defense is placed principally on that ground. The case shows that as such broker she loaned plaintiff $65 (defendant says $70) for thirty days and received the diamond in pledge. After the expiration of the time the loan was twice renewed. After the expiration of sixty days from the expiration of the last renewal she sold the jewel to one Lowenstein. Plaintiff tendered defendant the sum of $75, being in full of the principal and interest due defendant, and demanded the pledge. It being refused, plaintiff instituted an action of replevin against defendant which resulted adversely to him for the “reason solely, ” as stated in the judgment, that defendant did not have possession at the time the suit was instituted.
usury: release By reason of section 7208, Revised Statutes 1889, a pawnbroker may lawfully charge two per cent per month for a loan on articles pawned. He may likewise lawfully sell such articles sixty days after the expiration of the time of the loan. By the terms of section 2, Laws 1891, p. 171, it is declared that the exacting of usury by a chattel mortgagee or pledgee shall render the mortgage or pledge invalid and illegal. The terms of this section were enforced in the case of a chattel mortgage in American Rubber Co. v. Wilson, 55 Mo. App. 656. The evidence showed clearly that defendant demanded and received of plaintiff more than two per cent per month for the sum loaned. She was therefore guilty of exacting usury and the court properly held the pledge illegal.
“In actions for the enforcements of liens upon personal property pledged or mortgaged to secure indebtedness, or to maintain or secure possession of property so pledged or mortgaged,- or in any other case when the validity of such lien is drawn in question, proof upon the trial that the party holding or claiming to hold any such lien has received or exacted usurious interest for such indebtedness shall render any mortgage or pledge of personal property, or any lien whatsoever thereon given to secure such indebtedness, invalid and illegal.”
While it is true that the general subject of pawnbrokers is embraced in chapter 124, Revised Statutes 1889, and that a punishment for a violation of the act is there prescribed, yet this does not prevent the application of another and later statute plainly enacted for the purpose of inflicting disabilities in addition to the punishment already prescribed.
What has been already said necessarily disposes of all the material objections offered by defendant to the action of the trial court. A full examination of the