In re United Funds Management Corp.
In re United Funds Management Corp.
Opinion of the Court
The material facts are not in dispute and may be stated as follows:
The claimants are both borrowers of and lenders to the predecessor to the bankrupt United Funds Management Corporation. They are borrowers in that they secured loans upon their real estate for which they gave their note secured by deed of trust on the real estate. The notes were payable on a given date and the rate of interest legal. They were lenders in that, contemporaneously with the execution of the note and deed of trust aforesaid, they purchased a bond from the bankrupt under the following terms — that they were to pay a stipulated amount per month for a stated number of months at the end of which term they would mature the bond in a face
The claimants — the property owners— assert that the various agreements constituted only one transaction with the result that the bankrupt was exacting interest at a usurious rate which invalidates the collection of the excessive interest with the result that in some instances when the legal rate (6%) of interest is calculated and the payments made on the bonds are applied on the notes the notes have been fully discharged. Those claimants ask that an order be entered cancelling the notes and deeds of trust and requiring the return of those documents, while the other claimants ask that an order be made requiring the application of the payments made on the bonds to the discharge of the notes and permission given them to pay the balance due on the notes, discharging the notes and releasing the deeds of trust.
The interest charged is not usurious as the notes and deeds of trust on the one hand and the bonds on the other are two separate and distinct transactions for the purpose of determining the return to the respective parties of the loan by the bankrupt to the property owner in the one instance and the loan by the property owner to the bankrupt in the other. One is a long-term loan with a corresponding low rate of interest and the other is a short-term loan with a comparatively high rate of interest — both well within the limit of 8 per cent provided by the Missouri statute.
But the two transactions are so corelated that so long as both agreements remain active the ultimate objective of the parties, to-wit, that the matured value of the bonds shall be applied to the discharge of the principal amount of the notes, should be recognized as the continuing object, intent and purpose of the parties. Only in the event that the property owner exercised the right to terminate this contemplated purpose by surrendering the bonds for the cash surrender value should the agreements lose their characteristic of being so corelated that the payments on the bonds will not be considered as payments on the principal amount of the note. Arguendo, it should be noted that the exercise of this right by the property owner is contingent upon the absence of any default either in the monthly payment of the monthly installment on the bond or the monthly payments of interest on the note. If the conditions authorizing the exercise of the privilege exist and the property owner does surrender the bond for the cash surrender value then the bankrupt is no longer under any obligation to extend the time of
If the parties consider more formal findings of fact necessary or desirable, they may submit such findings for consideration not inconsistent with the conclusions heretofore expressed and without waiving their rights to exceptions for the failure of the Court to make other and additional findings.
Each of the claimants may submit for consideration formal orders relative to their specific claims.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- In re UNITED FUNDS MANAGEMENT CORPORATION. Petitions of WINFREY
- Status
- Published