39 Mo. 445 | Mo. | 1867
delivered the opinion of the court.
Ransom, who was a judgment creditor of one Bagby, having sued out an execution on his judgment, caused the defendant Hays to be summoned' as garnishee. In addition to the usual interrogations, Ransom propounded and filed the following: “ At the time you were summoned as garnishee, had or had not defendant Robert F. Bagby sued you for usury, and if so, how much usury has he paid you within the last three years that has not been repaid ?” In answer to this interrogatory, Hays stated that he was sued by Bagby for usury; that the suit was commenced before the notice of garnishment was sued, and that the records of the court would show the correct date of the suit. The garnishee in his answer then denied that Bagby had paid him any usury within the last three years before the service of the notice of garnishment, or at any other time, that was not fully repaid before the garnishment. To this answer Ransom filed a denial, and alleges that on or about the 8th of .March, 1858, Bagby borrowed from Hays a sum of money, on which he paid usurious interest — at the rate of about twenty-five 'Or thirty per cent.— and that the amount of usury so paid was about two hundred dollars; that after the payment of the debt and usury by Bagby to Hays, ifagby instituted a suit in the Court of Common Pleas for Buchanan county, in his own name and against Hays, to recover the amount of usury so paid, and claimed that at the service of
The defence of usury, like the defence of infancy, is a personal privilege, and can be exercised "only by the person immediately interested. But it is contended that when Bagby brought suit to recover the usurious interest he had paid to Hays, he elected to avail himself of his personal privilege, and from that time there was a valid subsisting debt in his favor which could be reached by the process of garnishment. Whilst on the other side it is argued that under the statute of this State that if a party voluntarily pay interest as usury, an action cannot be maintained for its repayment, and that the only remedy the debtor has is to plead it in defence, when sued on the contract out of which it originates. In the case of Hawkins v. Welch, 8 Mo. 490, the court does not expressly decide the point, but intimates the opinion that a party paying usurious interest may recover it back by an action at law. The case was decided when the statute of 1835 was in force, though it is not referred to in the opinion of the court. That statute was materially different from the one of 1855, which governs this case so far as statutory law is concerned. Hawkins v. Welch was based on tlie common law rule as declared by Ch. J. Spencer, in Wheaton v. Hibbard, 20 Johns. 293, and the question now is, has our law altered or changed the remedy ?
Sec. 4 of 1 B. C. 1855, p. 890, prohibits the taking of any higher interest than what is specified in the three preceding sections, and section 5 declares that when any action or suit is commenced on any bond, note, mortgage, specialty, agreement, contract, promise or assurance, made in this State, the defendant may in his answer show that a higher or
A different construction would defeat the whole policy and object of the law. If it should be held that in case the debtor did not avail himself of his privilege in resisting the payment of usury, and he could commence an action to reclaim the amount thus wrongfully paid, he would seldom plead it in defence ; he would have a direct interest in evading the statutory provision; for in the one case he would get the money in his own pocket, and in the other it would be awarded to the use of the schools. The statute does not contemplate the recovery back of unlawful interest once paid on a usurious contract; the law does not make such contract absolutely void ; and if the party completely and voluntarily performs his part of the contract, by paying the usurious interest, he is remediless.
By the laws of Wisconsin it is enacted that all. bonds, bills, notes, assurances, conveyances, and all other contracts or
In construing that statute by the Supreme Court of that State, it was decided that the usury laws could only be taken advantage of as a defence in the" manner prescribed by law, and that the party’s only remedy was to set up usury in his answer, and prove a tender of the amount due — Rock River Bank v. Sherwood, 10 Wis. 230. So in Illinois, it is held that usurious interest, once voluntarily paid, cannot be recovered back as money advanced, or had and received. The statute gives a defence but not a cause of action — Hadden v. Inness, 24 Ills. 381.
If the conclusion to which we have arrived as to the true construction of the statute concerning usury had been different, still this proceeding' could not be sustained.
Whatever claim the defendant Bagby had against the garnishee Hays rested purely in unliquidated damages, and was not the subject of garnishment. It is a well established principle that a mere liability of the garnishee to an action on the part of the defendant for damages not liquidated, as for negligence, fraud, wrongful conversion, or for the recovery from a creditor of usurious interest paid him by a debtor, cannot be the foundation of a judgment against the garnishee — Drake on Attach. § 548, and authorities cited.
The judgment is affirmed.