Kinney v. Duluth Ore Co.

• Decision Date: 16 August 1894
• Citation: 58 Minn. 455,60 N.W. 23
• Parties: KINNEY ET AL. v. DULUTH ORE CO. ET AL.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

58 Minn. 455

60 N.W. 23

KINNEY ET AL.

v.DULUTH ORE CO. ET AL.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Aug. 16, 1894.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. The proper transfer of a claim or demand, the payment of which may be enforced under the provisions of the mechanic's lien law (Gen. Laws 1889, c. 200), operates as an assignment of the right to a lien, including the right of the transferee to file the lien statement in his own name.

2. Such transferee or assignee may include more than one claim or demand in the same lien statement, providing the requirements of the statute are complied with as to each.

Appeal from district court, St. Louis county; S. H. Moer, Judge.

Action by Orrin D. Kinney and others against the Duluth Ore Company and others to enforce mechanics' liens. Judgment was ordered for defendants, and plaintiffs appeal. Reversed.

Draper, Davis & Hollister, for appellants.

Cotton, Dibell & Reynolds, for respondents.

Walter Ayers, for respondent John McKinley.

COLLINS, J.

The questions here presented for determination are-First, does the proper transfer of a claim or demand, the payment of which may be enforced under the provisions of the mechanic's lien law (Gen. Laws 1889, c. 200), operate as an assignment of the right to a lien, including the right of the transferee to file the lien statement in his own name? and, second, if the first question be answered in the affirmative, can such transferee or assignee include more than one claim or demand in the same lien statement?

1. There is nothing in the statute, as there is in the statutes of some states, which forbids, directly or by implication, the assignment of such claims and demands; and it was held more than 25 years ago, in Tuttle v. Howe, 14 Minn. 145 (Gil. 113), that a lien claim was capable of assignment, although in that case the required affidavit for a lien had been filed by the original creditor prior to the assignment. In that opinion, attention was called to section 14 of the then existing lien law, which gave to executors and administrators, as does section 17 of the law of 1889, the same rights as their testator or intestate would be entitled to, if living, and the well-settled general rule that whatever rights of action or of property survive to an executor or administrator are assignable was referred to and relied upon. No one would dispute the right of an executor or an administrator to file the lien statement required by the present statute, and if such be the case it...