Ex parte Alabama Brokerage Co.

• Decision Date: 29 June 1922
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 704.
• Citation: 94 So. 87,208 Ala. 242
• Parties: EX PARTE ALABAMA BROKERAGE CO.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

94 So. 87

208 Ala. 242

EX PARTE ALABAMA BROKERAGE CO.

6 Div. 704.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 29, 1922

Rehearing Denied Oct. 12, 1922.

Certiorari to Court of Appeals.

Petition of the Alabama Brokerage Company for certiorari to the Court of Appeals to review and revise the judgment and decision of said court in the case of Alabama Brokerage Co. v Boston, 93 So. 289. Writ denied.

D. D Trimble and Ellis & Matthews, all of Birmingham, for appellant.

Chas E. Wilder, of Birmingham, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

This petition is for the review of a judgment of the Court of Appeals in the case of Alabama Brokerage Co. v. Joe Boston, 93 So. 289, wherein the act of March 9, 1901 known as the Money Lenders' Act (Local Acts 1901, p. 2685), was upheld as constitutional; that conclusion being decisive of the case at bar, and being the only question presented on appeal.

This act, in its various constitutional aspects, was very carefully considered by District Judge Jones in Re Home Discount Co., 147 F. 538, 544, and was held to be within the legislative power and free from constitutional objections. We agree with the Court of Appeals in its approval of the opinion of Judge Jones in that case, as determinative of most of the objections here urged against the act.

It is now also urged with much earnestness that the act is obnoxious to subdivision 13 of section 104, which prohibits local laws "regulating the rate of interest." It is clear, however, that the act does not undertake in any way to fix or regulate the rate of interest. What it does is to attach a special disability to the enforcement of loans carrying a higher rate of interest than 12 per cent. which is a very different thing from authorizing or legalizing such a rate.

The insistence that the act is also obnoxious to section 105, which forbids the enactment of a local law "in any case which is provided for by a general law," is equally untenable, for there is no general law in Alabama covering the subject-matter and design of this act.

One insistence which deserves special notice is that section 7 of the act is invalid as class legislation, or as an unreasonable restraint on the right of contract. That section provides that, if the note or other security should be placed in an attorney's hands for collection, "no attorney's fee shall be taxed or charged against the borrower exceeding ten per cent. of the original loan."

No...