{
  "id": 1753668,
  "name": "Bill WORTHEN v. Joe DILLARD, County Judge, and Arnold R. KNIGHT, County Clerk, of Baxter County, Ark.",
  "name_abbreviation": "Worthen v. Dillard",
  "decision_date": "1982-02-16",
  "docket_number": "81-238",
  "first_page": "132",
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T22:26:14.502720+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "Hays, J., concurs."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "Bill WORTHEN v. Joe DILLARD, County Judge, and Arnold R. KNIGHT, County Clerk, of Baxter County, Ark."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Richard B. Adkisson, Chief Justice.\nAppellant brought suit under the Declaratory Judgment Act, Ark. Stat. Ann. \u00a7\u00a7 34-2501 \u2014 2512 (Repl. 1962), to have a Bond Purchase Agreement entered into by appellees declared invalid as violating Arkansas\u2019 usury provision, Art. 19, \u00a7 13 of the Arkansas Constitution. The Baxter County Chancery Court\u2019s ruling in favor of appellees is now appealed.\nOn August 27, 1981, appellees, the County Judge and the County Clerk of Baxter County, authorized a contract for the sale of Baxter County Hospital Revenue Bonds for the purpose of upgrading and expanding the Baxter General Hospital, a county owned and operated hospital. This contract called for an interest rate on the bonds in excess of ten percent for the years 1988\u20142011. Appellant, a citizen, resident, and taxpayer of Baxter County, brought this action individually and as a representative of other residents of Baxter County to enjoin the sale and issuance of the bonds as an illegal county expenditure in violation of Art. 19, \u00a7 13. This section provides:\nAll contracts for a greater rate of interest than ten percent per annum shall be void, as to principal and interest, . . .\nThe trial court held that the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, as amended, preempted the ten percent limit on interest rates as applied to the bonds at issue here. Section 511 of this Act is codified in Title 12 U.S.C.A. \u00a7 86a (a) and provides:\n(a) If the applicable rate prescribed in this section exceeds the rate a person would be permitted to charge in the absence of this section, such person may in the case of a business or agricultural loan in the amount of $1,000 or more, notwithstanding any State constitution or statute which is hereby preempted for the purposes of this section, take, receive, reserve, and charge on any such loan, interest at a rate of not more than 5 per centum in excess of the discount rate, including any surcharge thereon, on ninety-day commercial paper in effect at the Federal Reserve bank in the Federal Reserve district where the person is located. (Emphasis added)\nAppellant argues that the loan as evidenced by the bonds is not a \u201cbusiness loan\u201d within the meaning of \u00a7 86 (a). We agree. The Act does not define \u201cbusiness or agricultural loan\u201d and there is nothing in the legislative history to clarify congressional intent except a Senate report which contrasts \u201cbusiness and agricultural loans\u201d with \u201cconsumer and personal loans.\u201d Therefore, in absence of any guidance in the statute or legislative history, the term \u201cbusiness loan\u201d must be given its plain and ordinary meaning. We conclude that a loan to upgrade a county owned and operated hospital is not within the plain meaning of the term \u201cbusiness loan\u201d as used in the Monetary Control Act.\nReversed.\nHays, J., concurs.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Richard B. Adkisson, Chief Justice."
      },
      {
        "text": "Steele Hays, Justice,\nconcurring. I concur entirely in the result, but I believe there is a sounder basis for reversal than whether the revenue bonds to upgrade and enlarge a county hospital constitute a \u201cbusiness loan\u201d within the meaning of \u00a7 511 of the Monetary Control Act. The answer is not that clear and appellees\u2019 arguments are not that easily denied. They submit that Congress intended to classify loans generally as either \u201cconsumer or personal\u201d or \u201cbusiness or agricultural\u201d and, thus, by a process of elimination the loan becomes a \u201cbusiness loan.\u201d\nHowever that may be, I would reverse for another reason. It is one thing for Congress, acting under the Commerce Clause, to pre-empt the right to govern the interest rate private lenders and borrowers set between themselves, but quite another to claim the pre-emptive right to deny to a state the power to limit its own governmental subdivisions to a rate of interest fixed by the constitution of that state. I cannot say the Monetary Control Act does not purport to do that, but nothing is cited to us to support such an arrogation of power. It is questionable whether the power exists at all, and certainly not in the absence of an express provision. See National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976); Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell, 269 U.S. 514 (1926); United States v. California, 297 U.S. 175 (1936).\nAppellees draw a distinction that in Usery, Congress sought, to impose a burden on the states by amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act, whereas here, Congress is simply providing an opportunity to compete in the bond market. But the issue is deeper than one of a burden versus a benefit; it involves the fundamental question of where state sovereignty ends and federal sovereignty begins. See Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 19 L. Ed. 101 (1869).",
        "type": "concurrence",
        "author": "Steele Hays, Justice,"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Roy Danuser, for appellant.",
      "Friday, Eldredge & Clark, by: John C. Echols and Robert S. Shafer, for appellees."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "Bill WORTHEN v. Joe DILLARD, County Judge, and Arnold R. KNIGHT, County Clerk, of Baxter County, Ark.\n81-238\n628 S.W. 2d 7\nSupreme Court of Arkansas\nOpinion delivered February 16, 1982\nRoy Danuser, for appellant.\nFriday, Eldredge & Clark, by: John C. Echols and Robert S. Shafer, for appellees."
  },
  "file_name": "0132-01",
  "first_page_order": 140,
  "last_page_order": 143
}