68 Pa. 67 | Pa. | 1871
The opinion of the court was delivered,
I do not propose to review the course of decisions in this court on the subject of building association loans. I am afraid that I do not understand them all, and certainly never would, have united in several of them as to the construction and application of the Acts of Assembly upon the subject. But there is one point which seems to be very clear, that it is entirely too late now to overrule them. These decisions settle two points : First, that an unincorporated society like that now before us could not under the Act of March 2d 1782, 1 Sm. L. 156, lawfully recover more than the amount actually advanced in loans to their members, and the legal rate of interest thereon: Bechtold v. Boehm, 2 Casey 269. In that case the English view that such associations were partnerships and the agreement of members to share the profits was not within the usury laws was urged on the court. “ We think,” said Tindal, C. J., “it was a dealing with the partnership fund, in which the defendant, had an interest in common with the other members of the society, and that it was not a loan. The defendant was interested in the fund when the money was advanced and when it was repaid. The rules of the society are in effect a mere agreement by partners that their joint contributions shall be advanced for the use of one or others as occasion requires:” Silver v. Barnes, 6 Bingh. N. C. 180. This was the ground upon which the judgment of the District Court below in that case had been entered, and that judgment was reversed and judgment was entered for the amount actually advanced and interest. The legislature, however, had interfered. By an Act of Assembly of April 22d 1850, sections 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, Pamph. L. 150, any number of persons, citizens of Philadelphia, Schuylkill and Berks, associated for the purpose of forming “mutual savings funds, land and building associations, might apply to the Court of Common Pleas and obtain charters of incorporation, and by a subsequent Act of Assembly of May 8th 1855, Pamph. L. 519, it was declared that in investments by building associations in loans to members thereof, the premium given for purchase or priority of loan, shall not be deemed usurious.” In Kupfert v. The Guttenberg Building Association, 6 Casey 465, it was decided that a society formed for the purpose of loaning money to its members, is not a building association, within the meaning of the Acts of 1850 and 1855. “ This company,” said Chief Justice Lowrie, “ is not a building association at all. True, in the second article of its constitution ,it declares its object to be
Judgment reversed, and now judgment for the plaintiff below, for $889.12 and interest from November 9th 1869.