Davis v. Arthur

• Decision Date: 02 March 1898
• Parties: DAVIS v. ARTHUR et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

170 Mass. 449
49 N.E. 739

DAVIS
v.
ARTHUR et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 2, 1898.

Appeal from superior court, Suffolk county; J.B. Richardson, Judge.

Action by Joseph H. Davis against Alan Arthur and others to enforce a mechanic's lien, in which defendants Charles E. Nutter and another, partners, doing business under the firm name and style of Nutter & Seabury, filed an intervening petition to enforce an alleged mechanic's lien for labor on the same premises. From an order dismissing their intervening petition, defendants Nutter & Seabury appeal. Affirmed.

The report of the case by the justice trying the same is as follows: “On April 5, 1897, Joseph H. Davis, of Boston, filed in this court his petition to enforce a mechanic's lien for labor performed and furnished under a contract with Arthur & Shaw, contractors, in the erection of a building on land in Boston, said building and land being owned by the estate of Abbott Lawrence, or by Peabody, Foster, and Lawrence, as executors or trustees under the will of said Abbott Lawrence. The amount claimed by the petitioner was $1,333.50. The petition set forth that the petitioner ceased to labor on and furnish labor for said building on February 12, 1897, and that within 30 days from that date he duly filed his statement in the registry of deeds for the county of Suffolk. A precept was issued by said court on the day of the filing of the petition in the form prescribed by Acts 1888, c. 344, § 2, the return day whereof was the first Monday of May, 1897. Following is a copy of the officer's return upon said precept: ‘Suffolk-ss.: Boston, April 17, 1897. By virtue of this precept, on the fifteenth day of April, 1897, I summoned the within-named Francis Peabody, Jr., Reginald Foster, and John Lawrence, executors or trustees as within described, the alleged owners of the within-described premises, each to appear and answer at court as within directed, by delivering to each an attested copy of this precept. And on the same day, to wit, April 15, 1897, I notified Alan Arthur, one of the alleged debtors, that the petition named had been filed in said court, by delivering to him in hand an attested copy of the within precept; and on the same day I posted a like attested copy upon the building or structure named in said precept. And on said fifteenth day of April, 1897, I notified Ezekiel Van Noorden, E.W. Cox, and Charles E. Nutter, Martin Ribovich, and John White; and on the 17th day of April...