Hansen-Snyder Co. v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 01 October 1963
• Docket Number: HANSEN-SNYDER
• Citation: 371 Mich. 480,124 N.W.2d 286
• Parties: COMPANY, a copartnership, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, a foreign corporation, Mechanical Equipment and Service Corporation, and Hugh Laundra Electric, Inc., a Michigan corporation, Defendants, Joseph I. Laro and Genesee-Merchants Bank & Trust Company, a Michigan banking corporation, Intervening Defendants and Appellants. HUGH LAUNDRA ELECTRIC, INC., a Michigan corporation, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, a foreign corporation, Mechanical Equipment and Service Corporation, and Hansen-Snyder Company, a copartnership, Defendants, Joseph I. Laro and Genesee-Merchants Bank & Trust Company, a Michigan banking corporation, Intervening Defendants and Appellants. 36,
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 286

124 N.W.2d 286

371 Mich. 480

HANSEN-SNYDER COMPANY, a copartnership, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, a foreign corporation,

Mechanical Equipment and Service Corporation, and

Hugh Laundra Electric, Inc., a Michigan

corporation, Defendants,

Joseph I. Laro and Genesee-Merchants Bank & Trust Company, a

Michigan banking corporation, Intervening

Defendants and Appellants.

HUGH LAUNDRA ELECTRIC, INC., a Michigan corporation, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, a foreign corporation,

Mechanical Equipment and Service Corporation, and

Hansen-Snyder Company, a copartnership, Defendants,

Joseph I. Laro and Genesee-Merchants Bank & Trust Company, a

Michigan banking corporation, Intervening

Defendants and Appellants.

36, Oct. Term, 1963, 37, Oct. Term, 1963.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Nov. 4, 1963.

Albert C. Reinert, Saginaw, for plaintiffs and appellees.

White, Newblatt, Nelson, Hart & Crawford, Flint, for intervening defendants and appellants.

Before the Entire Bench.

DETHMERS, Justice.

These cases, consolidated for trial and this appeal, involve foreclosures of mechanics' liens arising out of the same construction work.

Defendant General Motors Corporation entered into a contract for construction on its land of hardening furnaces with defendant Mechanical Equipment and Service Corporation as general contractor. The latter corporation engaged Hugh Laundra Electric, Inc., plaintiff in one case, as subcontractor to do the electrical work on the job. It hired Hansen-Snyder Company, plaintiff in the other case, as subcontractor to do the piping work.

Neither subcontractor was paid in full. Both filed bills for foreclosure of mechanics' liens. General Motors still has on hand a sizeable balance due the general contractor. That balance intervening defendants and appellants insist should be paid to them and not to plaintiffs. The intervening defendants are a bank which loaned money to the general contractor and took as security an assignment of claims due the latter from General Motors on the contract and an individual who endorsed, as surety, the note given by the general contractor to the bank as evidence of the indebtedness. They deny that plaintiffs acquired valid liens. They appeal from decrees of foreclosure of the same, and ask that the decrees be set aside and that the mentioned balance in the hands of General Motors be awarded to them under the assignment.

Stipulated pertinent facts are: That plaintiff Laundra Electric served its notice of intention to claim a lien more than 60, but less than 90 days after its first furnishing of labor and materials and recorded its statement and account of lien and served copy thereof on General Motors more than 60 but less than 90 days from its last furnishing of labor or materials; that plaintiff Hansen-Snyder served its notice of intention to claim a lien more than 60 and also more than 90 days after its first furnishing of labor and materials, but before the general contractor furnished its contractor's statement to the property owner, and recorded its lien and served copy thereof on General Motors more than 60 but less than 90 days after its last furnishing of labor and materials.

Both plaintiffs contracted for and began their work while the statute (C.L.1948, § 570.1, as amended by P.A.1958, No. 213 [Stat.Ann.1959 Cum.Supp. § 26.281]), still required that subcontractors serve notice of intent to claim lien on property owners within 60 days of the date of first furnishing labor and material. While plaintiffs were still in process of furnishing labor and materials and within 60 days after first furnishing them P.A.1960, No. 75, became effective, amending the statute to extend from 60 days to 90 days the period for serving notice of intent to claim lien and for filing or recording the lien.

Questions relating to validity of plaintiffs' liens and foreclosure thereof are, (1) as to both plaintiffs, whether the mentioned amendment of the mechanics' lien act extending time for serving and filing from 60 to 90 days has retrospective effect, and (2) as to plaintiff Hansen-Snyder only, whether the term 'solely as to labor' in C.L.1948, § 570.1, as amended by P.A.1958, No. 213 Stat.Ann.1959 Cum.Supp. § 26.281), should be interpreted to mean that a subcontractor, who has contracted to supply labor and materials and who has served one notice of intent to claim a lien, covering both labor and materials, but who served the same after the prescribed period of time but before the general contractor gave its contractor's statement, has a valid lien for the amount of his contract which covers labor?

Intervenors quote from 50 Am.Jur., Statutes, § 478, and 50 An.Jur. Statutes, § 482, for the general proposition that absent a clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary it is to be presumed that the legislature intended an enactment to have prospective effect only. It is to be observed, however, that this is stated therein to be especially true when giving a statute retroactive operation will interfere with an existing contract, destroy a vested right, create a new liability in connection with a past transaction or invalidate a defense which was good when the statute was passed. A retrospective law is therein defined as one which takes away or impairs vested rights, creates a new liability, imposes a new duty or attaches a new disability in respect to transactions or considerations already past. Such is not the situation at bar. Applicable rather, is the language from the latter American Jurisprudence citation that 'remedial statutes, or statutes related to remedies or modes of procedure, which do not create new or take away vested rights, but only operate in furtherance of a remedy or confirmation of rights already existing, do not come within the legal conception of retrospective law, or the general rule against retrospective operation of statutes. To the contrary, the statutes or amendments pertaining to procedure are generally held to operate retrospectively, where the statute or amendment does not contain language clearly showing a contrary intention. Indeed, in the absence of any savings clause, a new law changing a rule of practice is generally regarded as applicable to all cases then pending. * * * Sometimes the rule is stated in the form that, when a new statute deals with procedure only, prima facie, it applies to all...