Cole v. Franklin Life Ins.

108 F.2d 130, 1939 U.S. App. LEXIS 2514
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedDecember 13, 1939
DocketNo. 9223
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 108 F.2d 130 (Cole v. Franklin Life Ins.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cole v. Franklin Life Ins., 108 F.2d 130, 1939 U.S. App. LEXIS 2514 (5th Cir. 1939).

Opinion

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge.

When appellant was here before,1 she was appealing from a judgment which, upon findings, fully supported by evidence, denying her defense of homestead and usury, had awarded appellee the title to the land in controversy.

On that appeal, her main contention was that the sale under power, at which appellee had bought, was invalid, because made within the time within which an administration upon the estate of her decedent, could be taken out, and appellee’s sale under its deed of trust and the title based on it, had fallen upon the taking out by her, of an administration. On this appeal, from a judgment establishing appellee’s debt and ordering foreclosure of its lien, appellant’s two contentions are: (1) that, there was usury in the debt, and she should have had the principal sum abated by the interest payments made; and (2) that, because of the pendency of a suit she had instituted in the state court, while her former appeal was pending, the Federal Court was without jurisdiction to entertain this suit for debt and foreclosure, filed after appellee had presented its claim to her as administratrix, and the claim as presented, had been disallowed. On the usury point, it is not, it could not be claimed, that appellant in any year, actually p'aid more than 10% interest, for, the loan was made on a 7% basis, and no more than 7% was paid on it in any year. The claim is that the notes were potentially usurious, because first, of the acceleration provisions in the deeds of trust, in view of the form the loan papers took,2 and second, because of the provision in the first deed of trust, for the payment of taxes, if any should be imposed on the note or lien.3

The first point made against the notes is then, the one which, since Deming Investment Company v. Giddens, 120 Tex. 9, 30 S.W.2d 287, and Shropshire v. Commerce Farm Credit Company, 120 Tex. 400, 30 S.W.2d 282, 39 S.W.2d 11, 84 A.L.R. 1269, has so much engaged the courts of Texas, and to some extent, our court.4

Appellant, invoking the Shropshire and Deming cases, supra, and the long line of cases which have followed in their train, insists that here is a typical case of usury by acceleration. Appellee, on its part, pointing to the provision in the second deed of trust,5 that in case of ac[132]*132celerated maturity, all interest notes shall be cancelled, to the extent that their total together with interest on the principal sum, exceeds 10%, and planting itself squarely on Walker v. Temple Trust Co., 124 Tex. 575, 80 S.W.2d 935-937, and the long line of following cases, construing and clarifying, Shropshire and Giddens,6 insists that under no possible circumstances could acceleration for non-payment of interest produce usury here. Appellee is right. The two deeds of trust and all the loan papers taken together, make it quite clear that there is no taint of usury in the loan, because of its provisions for acceleration for nonpayment of interest.

Upon her other point, that the provision for the payment of taxes imposed upon the note or lien, makes the contract usurious, appellant cites two Supreme Court cases, Duvall v. Kansas City Life Ins. Co., Tex. Civ.App., 96 S.W.2d 793, affirmed Kansas City Life Ins. Co. v. Duvall, 129 Tex. 287, 104 S.W.2d 11 and Travelers Ins. Co. v. Rowley, Tex.Com.App., 128 S.W.2d 20.

Both, dealing with a deed of trust provision for payment by the borrower of any taxes which might be .imposed upon the note or lien, while held by a nonresident of the State of Texas, hold that this will be regarded as a stipulation for additional interest upon the contingency named, and though no taxes were ever actually assessed on the note or lien, will condemn the contract as potentially usurious, if proof as to the applicable tax rate shows, that if the note or lien had been assessed for taxes, the amount ther.eof, added to the interest charges, would aggregate more than 10%.

Appellee seeks to distinguish those cases. As to the Rowley case, it points out that there, the contract provided against taxes on the note or lien which might be levied in the county where the land lay, while here, the contract fixes no place at all, for the applicable tax rate,-the notes are payable in Ft. Worth, and not in Denton, and the proof appellant sought to make, was of tax rates in Denton.

As to the Duvall case, conceding, that the language of the tax provision was general, as it is here, with no place fixed for the application of a tax rate, and that it is authority for the general principle, that potential usury may be shown by proof, that the applicable tax rate, if applied to note and lien, will produce a charge which, together with the interest, exceeds 10% per annum, appellee points out that there the proof was of the tax rate in Dallas where the loan was made and the original lender lived, and the Court of Civil Appeals held that the lender could not complain of proof of the applicable tax rate there.

Finally, however, appellee insists that the claim must be rejected, because the defense was not sufficiently pleaded and because, there was no admissible evidence in support of it.

This being a Texas case, we are, of course, obliged to follow and give effect to the law of usury as the Supreme Court of Texas has declared it. That court saying [128 S.W.2d 22]: “We can see no distinction between a contingency that a nonresident assignee may establish for a note a tax situs in the State of Texas and a contingency that such owner may establish for the note in question a tax situs in Denton County, Texas. One contingency is no more remote than the other”, has declared in the Rowley case that there is no sound distinction at all between the provisions in the deeds of trust in the Rowley and Duvall cases.

We are, therefore, obliged to reject as unsound, the distinction appellee seeks to draw between the terms of the tax provision here, and those in the Rowley case, for the provision in question here is the same as that in the Duvall case. And if appellant had made proof here, as was done in Duvall’s case, that the tax rate applicable at the place of its payment, would have, if applied to the note and lien, produced a sum which, added to the stipulated interest, would aggregate more than 10%, we would have been obliged, under the authority of that case, to hold the note usurious. But, appellant did not attempt to offer proof of the tax rate in Dallas County where the note was payable. She undertook instead, to make proof of the tax rate in Denton County, and as to that she offered no evi[133]*133dence, but merely ex parte statements of tax officers, to which appellant promptly and properly objected.

We therefore, think it plain that, the District Judge was right, upon the record before him, in finding and holding that no proof of usury was made out.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Bridgeman v. Gateway Ford Truck Sales
296 F. Supp. 233 (E.D. Arkansas, 1969)
Baber v. Texas Utilities Co.
128 F. Supp. 753 (N.D. Texas, 1955)
Fire Ass'n v. General Handkerchief Corp.
107 N.E.2d 499 (New York Court of Appeals, 1952)
Kane v. National Surety Corp.
94 F. Supp. 605 (N.D. Texas, 1951)
Texas Land & Mortg. Co. v. Mullican
132 F.2d 241 (Fifth Circuit, 1942)
Horzepa v. Dauski
40 F. Supp. 476 (E.D. New York, 1941)
Armstrong v. Alliance Trust Co.
112 F.2d 114 (Fifth Circuit, 1940)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
108 F.2d 130, 1939 U.S. App. LEXIS 2514, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cole-v-franklin-life-ins-ca5-1939.