Can an interest rate be 'unconscionably' high? The California Supreme Court will decide

Can a loan be too expensive?

That question, at the heart of a decade-old lawsuit over high-interest loans made by Orange County lender CashCall, is set to be taken up today by the California Supreme Court.

The court will hear oral arguments over whether California's lending law allows courts to find that the interest rate on a loan can be so high that it is "unconscionable" and therefore illegal. It's a sticky question that may require the justices to opine on what state legislators intended to do when they passed a lending-deregulation bill more than 30 years ago.

Lenders, consumer advocates and even California's