Meyer v. Berlandi
| Decision Date | 22 November 1888 |
| Citation | 40 N.W. 513,39 Minn. 438 |
| Parties | Hermann L. Meyer v. William Berlandi and others. Bohn Manufacturing Company v. Wesley J. Jameson and Wife, impleaded, etc |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Actions to enforce mechanics' liens, brought in the district court for Ramsey county. In the first case, (Meyer v. Berlandi, begun in 1887,) the plaintiff alleged the performance of labor and furnishing of the materials by plaintiff, as subcontractor, in the construction of a building which Wegmann & Kleimann were erecting under a contract with defendant William Berlandi, on land belonging to him in the city of St. Paul. The complaint alleged that plaintiff's subcontract was made March 28, 1887; that his work was done and materials furnished between April 1, and July 25, 1887; that the sum of $ 1,409 remains due plaintiff on his subcontract; that within 90 days from the completion of his work, and on September 21, 1887, the plaintiff filed in the registry of deeds for Ramsey county a duly-verified statement of account and claim of lien, which was recorded on the same day; and on the same day he personally served a copy on the defendant William Berlandi. The defendants, in an amended answer, set out a copy of the plaintiff's verified lien-statement. The plaintiff, in his reply admitted the truth of this part of the answer, and afterwards, and on April 7, 1888, moved for leave to amend the complaint by inserting an allegation that on January 11 1888, he filed in the registry of deeds for Ramsey county a duly-verified account in writing of the items of labor performed and materials furnished and of the value thereof which was duly recorded, and a copy of which is part of the proposed amendment, and conforms with the requirements of Gen. St. 1878, c. 90. The motion was denied by Brill, J., who thereafter granted defendants' motion for judgment on the pleadings, on the ground "that the verified statement of lien, a copy of which is set out in Exhibit B of the amended answer, is insufficient under Gen. St. 1878, c. 90, and that chapter 170, Laws 1887, is void." Judgment was entered accordingly, and the plaintiff appealed.
In the second case (Bohn Mfg. Co. v. Jameson) the plaintiff sought to enforce a lien for material furnished by it to one Schmidt for use and used by him in erecting a building for defendant Jameson, on a lot belonging to him in St. Paul, under a contract with him. The complaint contains a copy of the recorded lien-statement and affidavit, which follows the requirements of Gen. St. 1878, c. 90, and was filed for record within the time therein prescribed, but not within the 90 days prescribed by Laws 1887, c. 170. The defendants Jameson and wife demurred to the complaint, and appeal from an order of Wilkin, J., overruling their demurrer.
Order and judgment affirmed.
Smith & Hawthorne, for appellant (in first case.)
Warner & Lawrence, for respondents (in first case.)
F. C. Stevens, for appellants (in second case.)
Kerr & Richardson, for respondent (in second case.)
The question raised by these appeals is the validity of Laws 1887, c. 170, commonly known as the "Mechanic's Lien Law." While this statute has been several times before us for consideration, this question has never before been presented to the court. In Pond Machine Tool Co. v. Robinson, 38 Minn. 272, (37 N.W. 99,) the only question was whether the act left the former law in force as to past claims. In State v. Brachvogel, 38 Minn. 265, (36 N.W. 641,) all that was decided was that the provisions of the third section were germane to the subject expressed in the title. In Jordan v. Board of Education, ante, p. 298, the only question was whether the act made a public school-house subject to lien. In the present cases the validity of the entire act is assailed, mainly on the ground that it is unconstitutional, but also that it is so imperfect and incomplete as to be incapable of being carried into effect. It therefore becomes necessary to consider the whole act.
At the outset, we remark that an examination of it fully satisfies us that the act was intended to, and does, cover the whole subject covered by the former statute relating to mechanics' liens; having the same general purpose, and touching the same ground, at every point, but materially changing the legal rights of parties, and adopting a somewhat different method of enforcing them. It was therefore manifestly intended as a substitute for the former statute, and as to all future claims to be the only statute on the subject. Therefore, if valid, it works a repeal of the old law, notwithstanding the limited character of the repealing clause; and hence there is no chance to supplement it with any of the provisions of former law. In fact the two statutes, although having the same general purpose of giving liens to laborers and material-men, work on so different lines that there is hardly a provision of the old law that will fit into the new. An examination of the act will also satisfy any lawyer that, even if all its provisions are valid, it is a very defective and incomplete skeleton, so badly lacking in working details that it would be very difficult to execute it, except by a system of construction by the courts bordering closely upon judicial legislation. Many of its provisions, too, are so obscure that much litigation would necessarily occur before its construction would become settled. We pass these considerations by, as they would not justify a court in declaring the act invalid if by any legitimate rules of construction its meaning can be ascertained and its provisions carried into effect.
But its incompleteness and obscurity are not the most serious objections to the act. Many of its provisions are flatly in violation of the constitution. The provision of the second section, giving a lien on homesteads, is clearly so. It is well settled in this state that a homestead cannot be made subject to a lien, in the absence of an agreement between the parties creating one. Cogel v. Mickow, 11 Minn. 354, (475;) Coleman v. Ballandi , 22 Minn. 144; Keller v. Struck, 31 Minn. 446, (18 N.W. 280.)
Section 3, if not unconstitutional on other grounds, is clearly repugnant to section 12, art. 1, of the constitution of the state, prohibiting imprisonment for debt. It is not necessary that a contractor be guilty of any fraud or other tort in order to subject him to the penalties of this section. If he has received his pay from the owner of the property, and owes a debt due on contract to one of his laborers or material-men which he is unable to pay, he is guilty of obtaining money on false pretences, and liable to imprisonment in the penitentiary. No matter how honestly he may have paid over the last dollar which he has received on his contract, yet if, through honest mistake, he took the job too cheap, or if by unforeseen accident it cost more than he anticipated, and for that reason he cannot pay all that he owes for labor or material, he is a felon. This is returning with a vengeance to the old barbarous fiction upon which imprisonment for debt was originally based, viz., that a man who owed a debt, and did not pay it, was a trespasser against the peace and dignity of the crown, and for this supposititious crime was liable to arrest and imprisonment. Such a statute cannot be sustained for a moment.
Section 5 of the act is also unconstitutional. As liens are an incumbrance upon the owner's property, it is fundamental that they can only be created by his consent or authority. No man can be deprived of his property without his consent or by due process of law. The basis of the right to enforce a claim, as a lien against property, is the consent of the owner, and it is upon this principle alone that laws giving liens to subcontractors are sustained. The contract of the owner with the contractor is, under the law, the evidence of the authority of the latter to charge the property with liabilities incurred by him in performing his contract. O'Neil v. St. Olaf's School, 26 Minn. 329, (4 N.W. 47;) Laird v. Moonan, 32 Minn. 358, (20 N.W. 354.) The legislature, seeming to have understood that such was the law, apparently attempted to evade it by providing in section 5 that the fact that the person performing labor or furnishing material was not enjoined by law from performing labor or furnishing material, by the person in whom the title was vested at the time, shall be conclusive evidence that such labor was performed or material furnished with and by the owner's consent. In short, if a wilful trespasser should go upon the land of another against his will or without his knowledge, and erect a building on it, and the owner of the land did not institute a suit, give bonds, and get out an injunction against the trespasser, he would be conclusively deemed to have consented to the erection of the building, and his land be subject to a lien in favor of the trespasser, although the owner might be entirely ignorant of the trespass until after the building was erected. The bare statement of such a proposition is sufficient. A man cannot be thus deprived of his property without his consent. The legislature may doubtless establish rules of evidence, but to enact a law making evidence conclusive which is not so necessarily in and of itself, and thus preclude a party from showing the truth, would be nothing short of confiscation of property and a destruction of vested rights without due process of law.
But perhaps the most objectionable provision of this statute, and one that goes to its very substance, is found in the tenth section, which provides that no incumbrance upon land created before or after the making a contract or performing labor or furnishing material, shall operate upon the building...
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