Stafford-Lewis

In this action plaintiff seeks to have an agreement for the purchase and sale of the entire stock of a corporation which she owned, together with her option to repurchase such stock, declared a usurious loan. Defendants by cross-complaint demand that their title to this stock be quieted and that they recover the amount they were required to pay on account of two promissory notes executed by plaintiff on behalf of her corporation but omitted from the balance sheet furnished defendants. Plaintiff appeals from an adverse judgment on all issues.

Plaintiff has been engaged for many years in. the exploration and production phases of the oil industry, principally in the Wilmington field in California, where she had 11 wells, and the Centralia, Illinois field, where she had three. She operated through the Selegna Petroleum Corporation, hereinafter referred to as Selegna. She owned all of its issued capital stock. In 1946 she ventured into the Tejón field in California but without success; in fact, she sustained substantial losses in that operation. In about February, 1948, plaintiff secured a loan from the Empire Trust Company of New York in the amount of $285,000, to be repaid in…