In First American Title Ins. & Trust Co. v. Cook (1970) 12 Cal. App. 3d 592, Stewart agreed to lend Cook $ 55,000 at 10 percent simple interest, provided Cook executed a promissory note that was to be secured by real property in San Diego County. The parties asked a title company to prepare the paperwork according to their escrow instructions, which called for ten percent simple interest. The printed form promissory note that the escrow company used inadvertently contained the following provision: " 'Should the interest not be so paid it shall be added to the principal and thereafter bear like interest as the principal.' " (12 Cal. App. 3d at p. 596.) While 10 percent simple interest is not usurious under the California Constitution, 10 percent compound interest is. Because this was clearly a case of scrivener's error, the court allowed reformation of the note to reflect the intent of the parties, stating, " 'This provision for compound interest was neither required by the escrow instructions nor requested by the parties.. . .. . . Cook contends the trial court erred in admitting evidence of the parties' lack of intent to violate the usury law because the note was usurious on its face. The cases stand for the proposition urged, but are inapposite to the present case. In none of them was the question of reformation of the agreement before the court, and in none was it contended, as it is here, that the particular provision in question, neither requested nor intended by the parties, found its way into the instrument through the error and inadvertence of the third party who drew it. Manifestly, where reformation of an instrument is under consideration, inquiry to ascertain the true intent of the parties is not only permissible but essential. Civil Code section 3401 provides: 'In revising a written instrument, the court may inquire what the instrument was intended to mean, and what were intended to be its legal consequences, and is not confined to the inquiry what the language of the instrument was intended to be.'In any event, the precise question raised by Cook has been decided adversely to him in Strauss v. Bruce (1934) 139 Cal.App. 62 33 P.2d 71, where a scrivener by mistake incorrectly copied from a printed form and thus inserted a usurious provision in a contract contrary to the agreement and true intent of the parties. The court reformed the note by deleting the objectionable provision." ( First American Title Ins. & Trust Co. v. Cook, supra, 12 Cal. App. 3d at pp. 596-598.)