61 Neb. 254 | Neb. | 1901
Suit was commenced in the district court for Douglas county by the Nebraska Loan & Building Association against Sarah E. Perkins and Cyrus V. Perkins to foreclose a certain mortgage given by the latter to the former, also to cancel certain shares of the stock of said association pledged by said Sarah E. Perkins as security for the payment of the same debt. On trial, a decree was rendered in favor of defendants, the court having found that the debt was fully paid. Plaintiff was a building and loan association, organized under the laws of 1873, chapter 11, page 207, General Statutes, 1873, entitled “An act to enable associations of persons for raising-funds to be loaned among their members for building them homesteads and other purposes, to become bodies-corporate.” The contract in question was entered into prior to the amendment of said law in 1891. The court below could not have found that said debt was paid unless the contract was tainted with usury, and it could not have been usurious unless the act of 1873 was unconstitutional; and that it is unconstitutional is the contention of counsel for defendants, who insist in their brief that the act is void for the following alleged reasons:
1. That it contains more than one subject, and its subjects are not clearly expressed in its title.
3. Because a portion of the act has been by this court held void, and it is claimed such portion was a material inducement to the legislature to pass the act as a whole.
4. Because that portion of the act which provides that although the dues, fines, premiums and other charges paid by members may aggregate a greater amount than the legal rate of interest, on loans made them, such payments shall not be construed to make such transactions usurious, is an attempt on the part of the legislature to usurp the powers of the courts, and therefore void.
These objections we will examine and discuss in their order. If any one of them is tenable, the lower court, was right in rendering the decree it did; if none of them can be sustained, the decree must be reversed.
The evils which the framers of the constitution of 1866 sought by section 19, article 2 thereof, to obviate tv ere surreptitious legislation, and a then common practice of including in one bill various subjects in nowise related to one another, by means of which a sufficient number of votes could be mustered to the support of provisions which, if entertained on their individual merits, would fail of passage. It was not intended thereby to prohibit comprehensive titles. State v. Stuht, 52 Nebr., 209; Paxton & Hershey Irrigating Canal & Land Co. v. Farmers & Merchants Irrigation & Land Co., 45 Nebr., 884; State v. Bemis, 45 Nebr., 724; Van Horn v. State, 46 Nebr., 62. Boggs v. Washington County, 10 Nebr., 297. If each piece of legislation must be confined to a single subject, it is evident that, so far as that one bill is concerned, there is little opportunity for trading votes on one portion in order to secure votes on some other—certainly much less than under the old custom, which permitted the inclusion in a bill of any number of subjects, regardless of their relations or congruity. If the title must clearly express
Another phase of the same question may be discussed in this connection. It will be noted that the title of the
The second objection is also untenable. The act in question is complete in itself, and could not, therefore, be repugnant to the constitution, though it might conflict with, or be repugnant to, some other statute. State v. Moore, supra; Van Horn v. State, supra; Bryant v. Dakota County, 53 Nebr., 755; Smith v. State, 34 Nebr., 689. Whether it does or does not conflict with the general usury laws, or those concerning corporations, is imma
For the reasons given, it is the conclusion of the court that the act in question does not violate any of the constitutional limitations referred to in the brief of counsel; for which reason the judgment of the lower court must be reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.