Duff v. Hoffman

• Decision Date: 03 January 1870
• Citation: 63 Pa. 191
• Parties: Duff <I>et al. versus</I> Hoffman <I>et al.</I>
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

63 Pa. 191

Duff et al. versus Hoffman et al.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

November 9, 1869.

January 3, 1870.

November 9th 1869.

Before THOMPSON, C. J., READ, AGNEW, SHARSWOOD and WILLIAMS, JJ.

Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny county: No. 218, to October and November Term 1869.

L. B. Duff, for plaintiffs in error, cited Witman v. Walker, 9 W. & S. 183; Act of June 16th 1836; Pamph. L. 696; Purd. 709 et seq.; Derickson v. Nagle, 2 Phil. R. 120.

J. Hays and E. A. Montooth cited Harlan v. Rand, 3 Casey 516.

The opinion of the court was delivered, January 3d 1870, by AGNEW, J.

We agree with the learned judge of the court below, that a lumber dealer, who has engaged to furnish lumber for a house, is not such a contractor, under the Mechanic's Lien Law, as can charge the building with a lien to another from whom he purchases his lumber. This much was said in Singerly v. Doerr, 12 P. F. Smith 9, decided at Philadelphia last winter, where, after holding that the owner of a planing-mill, who manufactured portions of the wood work of a house, could file a claim for the work he had done at his mill on the materials found by the contractor, we said: "If the contractor for the building had bought his doors, shutters, &c., from another who had employed the plaintiffs to do the sawing and planing, &c., for him, the case would be different, and the plaintiffs, then, must have looked to the other party who employed them. This is the doctrine of Harlan v. Rand, 3 Casey 516, relied on by the plaintiffs in error."

We also held in Singerly v. Doerr, that it is not necessary there should be but a single contractor for the whole building. We said: "It is not an objection that Ketchum was a contractor only for the carpenter work and lumber of the house. The law does not require the contractor to be such for the whole building. The owner may make his contracts for different parts of the work — as with one for the stone work, with another for the brick work, a third for the wood work, and, if the building be a factory, with a fourth for the machinery. There is no reason why a workman, or a material-man, employed by each contractor to do work or furnish materials within the scope of his contract, should not be entitled to a lien for it, as well as if there were but one contractor for the whole building. Except in the principal cities it is rare that men contract for the whole building. Generally contracts are made with them according to their line of business, as for masonry, carpentry, &c."

That case not being reported had not come to the eye of counsel and is not adverted to, but it is requisite we should notice it, to distinguish it from the case in hand. An architect or builder is the agent of the owner for erection, and we can readily perceive how, as agent, he should have power to subject the...