Not infrequently special contracts are exempted from the operation of the usury laws, either be cause special risks are assumed by the lender. or on grounds of commercial interest. In several States corporations are not permitted to plead usury.
Usury laws are, in general, strictly construed. Whenever the law declares a usurious contract invalid, mortgages, trust deeds, and all forms of surety are also invalidated; but the courts do not assume that a legislature has intended to avoid the contract as regards the principal of the debt, or as regards the legal interest, unless such penalty is expressly imposed; nor is penalty. as distinguished from the protection of the bor rower, incurred by merely stipulating for usuri ous interest, but only by receiving it.
In interstate cases (conflicts of law. q.v.), the question whether a contract is or is not usurious is governed by the law of the place where the contract was concluded, unless a different place was expressly or impliedly indicated as the place of performance. When a debt has been con tracted in one State to he paid in another, and the rate of interest stipulated is usurious in one of the States, but not in the other, some of the courts apply the local law which will uphold the contract. Penalties in the strict sense (as dis
tinguished from the legal protection to the borrower) are not enforced outside of the juris diction in which they are imposed. See INTEREST.
Tnrgot, Me/noire sur les prets (Pal-gent (1741) Bentham, Defense of Usury (London, 17S7) : Von Stein. Der Wueher s.tnd sein Hecht (1880) ; Caro. Der 11'nehcr; due soeialpolitisehe iS'tudie (1893) ; Murray, History of Usury (Philadelphia. 1806) ; Webb, 3 Treatise on the Law of Usury (1899).
UTA (Neo-T,at., from the Territory of Utah). A genus of iguanid lizards, several species of which are numerous on the Southwestern plains of the United States, one of which (Uta Stems buriana) is one of the most beautiful and grace ful of American lizards. It is blackish brown above, marbled with lighter dots, and banded with yellow below. Its long, slender tail has a crest of large vertically set scales.• This genus combines structural characteristics of Seeloporus and Hot brookia.