Niles

The plaintiff brought this action to foreclose a chattel mortgage executed by the defendants to secure the payment of their promissory note for six hundred dollars, with interest at two per cent per month. From the judgment, which was in favor of the plaintiff, the defendants appeal.

The execution of the note and mortgage, and the nonpayment of the amount for which judgment was given, are not questioned, the sole claim of the defendants being that the loan evidenced by the note and mortgage was void under the terms of “an act to define personal property brokers and regulate their charge and business.” (Stats. 1911, p. 978.) That act defines “personal property brokers” as including, among others, all persons engaged in the business of loaning money upon the security of chattel mortgages. It authorizes such brokers to charge and receive two per cent per month as a benefit or percentage upon money advanced, and declares (section 3) that “no further or other charges either for recording, insuring or examining the security or property, or for the drawing, executing or filing of papers, or for any services or upon any pretext whatsoever beyond the aforesaid charge for interest or…