No. 5506. | La. Ct. App. | Jun 30, 1937
This appeal is prosecuted from a judgment sustaining an exception of no cause of action interposed by the defendant Critt Rogers to plaintiff's suit on a promissory note executed by him and one Ben Smith and another. He is sued as indorser. The note was originally for $300 payable in twenty equal monthly installments, with interest on each monthly balance at the rate of 3½ per cent. per month. It was executed March 15, 1930. The balance due thereon on October 10, 1934, was $123.82. Plaintiff sues for this balance, plus 3½ per cent. per month from October 10, 1934, and 10 per cent. thereof as attorney's fees. Smith, the maker, made no appearance. Judgment by default against him was confirmed. He is not now before the court The other signer was not impleaded.
The exception does not suggest wherein the petition is faulty to the degree of not disclosing a cause of action. In oral argument and brief in this court, exceptor amplifies the exception and discloses his position thereon, in which the lower court concurred. It is this: That the petition does not affirmatively set out that the occupational license tax required by Act No. 7 of the Legislature of 1928, Ex. Sess., known as the Small Loan Law, and the franchise tax, as fixed and levied by Act No.
The Small Loan Act prescribes that certain things be done by persons, *917 partnerships, and corporations as a condition precedent to the loaning and collecting of money, in keeping with its provisions. Application for a license must be in writing. It must contain the information required by the Act. A bond for $1,000, of the tenor and conditions prescribed, shall be given and a license fee of $200 paid, after which, if other things are satisfactory to the state bank commissioner, a license will be issued to the applicant. The license warrants the holder to loan money in amounts not exceeding $300, and the charge of interest thereon at not more than 3½ per cent. monthly. The license fee is payable each year and, when accepted by the commissioner, the right to operate under the act for a year automatically arises. Failure to pay the license fee or put the bond in satisfactory condition, when required, works a forfeiture of the license theretofore issued. However, revocation of such license for these or other causes does not prevent the person thus affected from loaning money at 8 per cent. per annum, or from collecting that which has previously been loaned at a larger interest rate. This right is virtually recognized in the first paragraph of section 18 of the act, which reads as follows: "No person, copartnership or corporation, except as authorized by this Act, shall directly or indirectly charge, contract for or receive any interest, discount, or consideration greater than eight (8) per centum per annum upon the loan, use or forbearance of money, goods or things in action, or upon the loan, use or sale of credits, of the amount or value of Three Hundred Dollars ($300.00) or less."
Even if plaintiff had no license to operate under the provisions of Act No.
Act No.
The right to sue in courts of justice to enforce or vindicate vested interests is emphatically vouchsafed to all corporations legally created and existing. Article 443 of the Revised Civil Code; Act No.
Being creatures of the law and perennially subject to its control, the privilege of appearing in the courts of the state may be qualified or, even for offenses *918 or infractions of the law, denied entirely to corporate bodies. But, as before stated, such a purpose or intent on the part of the lawmaking body should be obvious. The two acts herein discussed contain no such restrictions.
The judgment appealed from is erroneous and it is, for the reasons herein assigned, annulled, reversed, and set aside, and this case remanded to the court a quo for further proceedings. Costs of appeal are assessed against appellee.
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