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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Usury Trompe L'Oeil, James J. White
The Usury Trompe L'Oeil, James J. White
Articles
This Article demonstrates how the interaction of a federal statute passed in 1864,1 a case decided by the Supreme Court in 1978,2 and modem technology has legally debarred every state legislature from controlling consumer interest rates in its state-but not from passing laws that appear to do so-and has politically debarred the Congress from setting federal rates to replace the state rates. As a consequence, the elaborate usury laws on the books of most states are only a trompe l'oeil, a "visual deception... rendered in extremely fine detail ... ." The presence of these finely detailed laws gives the illusion …
Secured Transactions History: The Northern Struggle To Defeat The Judgment Lien In The Pre-Chattel Mortgage Act Era, George Lee Flint Jr
Secured Transactions History: The Northern Struggle To Defeat The Judgment Lien In The Pre-Chattel Mortgage Act Era, George Lee Flint Jr
Faculty Articles
Nonpossessory secured transactions evolved as a competitor to collusive judgments as a means to protect creditors from the loss of their investments in colonial America. A collusive judgment involved the debtor recognizing his debt before the court, while the creditor held equitable title to the debtor’s personalty as collateral while the debtor retained possession. The 1677 Statute of Frauds destroyed the priority of the collusive judgment presenting opportunities for other parties to seek the debtor’s collateral. The chattel mortgage, predecessor of the secured transaction, developed from the standard shipping practices during colonial times. The shipping industries extended lines of credit …