Shawmut Commercial Paper Co. v. Brigham

• Decision Date: 27 February 1912
• Citation: 97 N.E. 636,211 Mass. 72
• Parties: SHAWMUT COMMERCIAL PAPER CO. v. BRIGHAM et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

211 Mass. 72

97 N.E. 636

SHAWMUT COMMERCIAL PAPER CO. v. BRIGHAM et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

February 27, 1912

COUNSEL

Ford &amp Schwarzenberg, for plaintiff.

Royal B. Young and E. Irving Smith, for defendants.

OPINION

SHELDON J.

We cannot accept the plaintiff's contention that the provisions of R. L. c. 102, § 51, apply only to loans secured by mortgage or pledge of personal property. That section is a codification of prior legislation, which began in St. 1888 c. 388. That act by its terms covered 'all loans' thereafter contracted 'for less than one thousand dollars,' and must of course be applied to all loans whether unsecured or secured in any manner whatever. St 1890, c. 416, § 6, recognized St. 1888, c. 388, as still in force. By St. 1892, c. 428,§ 1, the statute of 1888 was re- enacted, with a reduction in the fee which lenders were allowed to charge for making papers. Other sections of the act of 1892 provided for the case of such loans secured by mortgage or pledge of personal property. But the first section of this later act was still left to apply to all loans, secured or unsecured. This was the manifest intention of the Legislature. And the same construction must of course be given to the statute as codified in the Revised Laws, in spite of the title prefixed to section 47 of chapter 102. The construction of a statute is not to be affected by verbal changes in a revision, unless that was plainly intended by the Legislature. Great Barrington v. Gibbons, 199 Mass. 527, 529, 85 N.E. 737. Much less can titles or headings prefixed to subdivisions of a chapter in a codification have such an effect.

It follows that while the original note given by the defendants to the plaintiff remained unpaid, they might have paid or tendered to their creditor the amount of the actual loan made to them, with interest at the rate of 18 per cent. a year and the additional sum of $5, after applying in reduction of the principal sum all payments which they had made in excess of that rate of interest. This would fully have discharged their indebtedness. But it was their personal privilege, to be availed of only at their election; their note was not an unlawful contract, nor was it invalid. Spofford v. State Loan Co., 208 Mass. 84, 94 N.E. 287; Reed v. Boston Loan Co., 160 Mass. 237, 35 N.E. 677. They did not exercise their statutory right, and the plaintiff sued them upon the note. They still might have discharged their indebtedness by making the same payment or tender (R. L. c 102,...