WOLF v. PACIFIC SOUTHWEST DISCOUNT CORPORATION (1936)

Plaintiff sued for treble the amount of compensation paid for the loan of money alleged to have been exacted of him in excess of lawful charges as stipulated in the Usury Law (Stats.1919, p. lxxxiii; Deering's Gen.Laws, Act 3757). He appeals from a judgment of nonsuit.

Upon this appeal we are called upon to determine whether the Usury Law was repealed by the adoption, at the general election of November 6, 1934, of new section 22 of article 20 of the State Constitution.

It was held by the Appellate Department of the Superior Court for the county of Los Angeles in Fenton v. Markwell & Co., 11 Cal.App.(2d) Supp. 755, 52 P.(2d) 297, that the added section of the Constitution repealed the Usury Law and annulled causes of action then existing by virtue of the former law. This ruling was cited and followed in Andrews v. Reidy (Cal.App.) 54 P. (2d) 30 decided by this division of the court on January 29, 1936, in which a hearing was granted in the Supreme Court. In deciding the case, the Supreme Court found it unnecessary to pass upon the question of the repeal of the Usury Law. 60 P.(2d) 832.

The judgment herein was rendered after the effective date of the adoption of the new section of the Constitution. Under the rule announced in the foregoing cases, which we believe to be the correct one, plaintiff's right to recover penalties under the Usury Law passed out of existence when the law was repealed without any provisions in the repealing law preserving such right.

The judgment is affirmed.

SHINN, Justice pro tem.

We concur: YORK, Acting P. J.; DORAN, J.