McNab & Harlin Mfg. Co. v. Paterson Bldg. Co.

• Decision Date: 28 April 1906
• Parties: McNAB & HARLIN MFG. CO. v. PATERSON BLDG. CO. et al.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

63 A. 709

McNAB & HARLIN MFG. CO.

v. PATERSON BLDG. CO. et al.

Court of Chancery of New Jersey.

April 28, 1906.

Bill of interpleader by the McNab & Harlin Manufacturing Company against the Paterson Building Company, and others. Decree rendered.

Final hearing upon statements of defendants of the grounds of their several claims to liens by stop notices under section 3 of the mechanic's lien law (P. L. 1898, p. 538).

J. W. De Yoe, for George A. Meyers & Co. Ward & McGinnis, for the Mehrhoff Brick Co. Bentley & Fielder, for Collins, Lavery & Co. H. McQuillin, for Martin Goble and for Cyril R. Forbes. Michael Dunn, for Cornelius J. Gallagher. Wood McKee, for James Radcliff & Sons. J. G. Blauvelt, for the G. Drouve Co. W. B. Gourley, for Joseph R. Graham. Edward F. Merrey, for Thomas F. McCran, receiver of the Paterson Building Co.

STEVENSON, V. C. After the fund $5,027.97 had been paid into court in pursuance of the decree of interpleader, the 10 defendants filed their respective "concise statements" setting forth the grounds of their respective claims in accordance with the practice established by rule 221. The litigation thus set in court was brought to a final hearing on June 8 and 9, 1905. After the testimony had been taken, and counsel had been heard in regard to each claim I announced orally my conclusions setting forth in each case the reasons why the claim was either allowed in its place as a lien against the fund or rejected. Four of the claims were disallowed under the rules laid down or followed by me in the case of Beckhard v. Rudolph (N. J. Ch.) 59 Atl. 253 (decided June, 1904). Inasmuch as this Beckhard Case was then pending on appeal in the Court of Errors and Appeals, I announced that the final decree in the present case would be withheld until the Becknard Case had been decided in the court of last resort, and that if such decision reversed or modified the decree of this court a further hearing then would be had herein. The Court of Errors and Appeals having reversed the decree advised by me in the Beckhard Case (63 Atl. 705), all of the defendants were duly brought into court on notice of the settlement of the decree "in accordance with the decision of the Court of Chancery already announced in this case and the decision of the Court of Errors and Appeals" in the Beckhard Case. Inasmuch as neither the testimony nor the conclusions announced by me have been written out by the stenographer, I shall not undertake to set forth the grounds on which any claims are either rejected, or allowed excepting in the four cases above mentioned, viz., the respective cases of the G. Drouve Company, Martin Goble, Collins, Lavery & Co., and Cornelius J. Gallagher. In regard to each of these four claims, all of which were disallowed, it has been argued that the decision of the Court of Errors and Appeals in the Beckhard Case, or the opinion of that court formulated by Mr. Justice Pitney, compels its allowance. As to the other six claims, which embrace five alleged liens by stop notice, and the claim of the receiver of the corporation which erected the building under the contract on file, no insistment is made that the decision of the Court of Errors and Appeals in the Beckhard Case can possibly lead to a different result in any instance. Two of these five claims on stop notice were allowed, and the remaining three were disallowed. In case an appeal should be taken from the decision of this court as to any one of these six claims, a brief additional opinion will be filed.

I am unable to distinguish the claim of the G. Drouve Company from the claim of Adamson & Son, which was sustained by the Court of Errors and Appeals in Beckhard v. Rudolph. The claim of Adamson & Son was for the amount due for the plumbing which they had put into the building in pursuance of a subcontract. They supplied the materials and performed the labor and the elements of labor and materials in fact entered about equally into the total charge. The total charge, however, was a single sum for the entire contract The Court of Errors and Appeals decided that Adamson & Son were "materialmen" who had "furnished materials used in the erection" of Mr. Beckhard's building, and that the amount claimed by them in their notice to be due for "work done and materials furnished" in fact was due "for materials furnished in situ," and that, therefore, they could acquire a lien by a stop notice under section 3 of the mechanic's lien law (P. L. 1898, p. 538). In the present case, the G. Drove Company had a similar subcontract for the incorporation into the building of a system of bars or levers called the "Lovell Apparatus," a device for opening and closingwindows. The total charge was $1,373.70. Although, as in the case of Adamson & Son, this total charge was in no way divided, so as to indicate how much of it was for labor and how much of it was for material, it was evident that a very large portion of the charge represented the value of the apparatus or finished parts of the apparatus delivered at the building, all of which was material—raw material so far as the building operations were concerned—and plainly lienable. If any distinction could be drawn between the notice which was deemed sufficient by the Court of Errors and Appeals in the case of Adamson & Son and the notice served by the G. Drouve Company, the latter seems to follow the statute more closely than the former. The Adamson notice states that the material was furnished for the remodeling of the building as well as in the erection and alteration thereof whereas the notice in the Drouve case strictly adheres to the statutory language. My conclusion is that it would be entirely unnecessary to discuss the principles enunciated by the Court of Errors and Appeals or inferable from the decision of that court in the Beckhard Case in order to determine the status of this claim of the G. Drouve Company. The lienability of the debt by stop notice and the sufficiency of the notice are directly and necessarily established by this decision which deals with substantially a parallel state of facts. My original ruling will therefore be changed and the claim will be allowed in its place as a lien.

In each of the other three cases now to be considered we have a different state of facts from that which was presented to the Court of Errors and Appeals on behalf of Adamson & Son in the case of Beckhard v. Rudolph. In order to determine these three cases I think it is necessary to ascertain and follow, not only the principles which are distinctly announced in the opinion of the court in the Beckhard Case, but also some of the principles which necessarily underlie the decision in that case. If I had taken time to set forth the fundamental rule of construction which I applied in the Beckhard Case, the court of last resort would perhaps have been led to make a deliverance which would have rendered a large part of the present discussion entirely unnecessary. The questions to be discussed, when perhaps narrowly defined, are these: First, whether section 3 of the mechanic's lien act is to be strictly or liberally construed so far as that section may give a lien to persons who are not journeymen or laborers, or, in other words, are not wage-earners; and, second, whether after the lien-ability of the debt has been established a strict or liberal construction is to be placed upon the provisions of the statute which regulate the fastening of the debt as a lien on the fund by service of a notice in writing. Fortunately it is not necessary to consider the broad question whether the mechanic's lien law generally should be construed strictly or liberally, if, indeed, any such broad question is capable of accurate statement or intelligent discussion. For various methods of treating this subject, and for illustrations of the "hopeless division of opinion" in regard to it, the following text-writers may be referred to with the judicial decisions which they cite. Boisot on Mechanics' Liens (1897) § 34; Phillips on Mechanics' Liens, § 16; 2 Jones on Liens (2d Ed.) § 1556; 20 Am. & Eng. Ency. (2d Ed.) pp. 277, 278.

What we are endeavoring to discover in this case is the true meaning of a few words in our New Jersey statute, the construction of which to a large extent may be determined without affecting rights and remedies which are unrelated to each other, or do not naturally stand in the same class. The New Jersey mechanic's lien law creates several radically different kinds of liens, and oftentimes a construction placed upon the statute in a case involving one kind of lien is equally applicable to cases involving an entirely different kind of lien. One lien may be of a character to induce the court to endeavor to sustain it by a liberal construction, whereas another lien may be of such a kind as to induce the court to exclude it, if possible, by a strict construction. The elemental mechanic's lien, no doubt, is of the kind which was created by the first mechanic's lien law ever enacted in this country, the statute passed by the state of Maryland in 1791 "concerning the territory of Columbia and the city of Washington." Laws Md. 1791, c. 45, par 10. This original mechanic's lien law was created expressly "for the encouragement of master builders to undertake the building" of houses in the projected city of Washington, and the lien was confined so as to secure only debts which were owed by the owner of the property subjected to the lien. Precisely the same limitation of the scope of the lien appears in the first statute establishing a mechanic's lien in any of the states. Laws Pa. 1803, p. 591. This Pennsylvania statute is the origin of all our New Jersey legislation. Its title is substantially the same as that of our present statute. This first Pennsylvania law like the original mechanic's lien laws of New York and New Jersey, was applicable to a narrow locality and it was also limited to a period of less than four years....