Meyers v. Bratespiece

• Decision Date: 02 March 1896
• Docket Number: 192
• Citation: 174 Pa. 119,34 A. 551
• Parties: Charles Meyers and Daniel Meyers, trading as Charles Meyers & Bro., v. J. Bratespiece, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

34 A. 551

174 Pa. 119

Charles Meyers and Daniel Meyers, trading as Charles Meyers & Bro., v. J. Bratespiece, Appellant

No. 192

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

March 2, 1896

Argued January 23, 1896

Appeal, No. 192, July T., 1895, by defendant, from judgment of C.P. No. 4, Phila. Co., September T., 1894, No. 432, on verdict for plaintiffs. Affirmed.

Replevin to recover a lot of coats. Before ARNOLD, J.

At the trial it appeared that plaintiffs delivered to Abraham Harris a quantity of cloth, to make up into coats at the rate of 35 cents per coat. Harris entered into a contract with defendant by which he agreed to pay him 50 cents per coat for making up a portion of the cloth. Harris after collecting some of the money due for the coats absconded without paying defendant who claimed to retain the coats until he was paid for the work.

The court charged in part as follows:

This is an action brought by the owner of these coats to get them back from a man with whom he had no dealings whatever, a perfect stranger. The plaintiffs gave these coats to a man named Harris to make up for 35 cents apiece, and Harris has decamped and judgment has gone against him in this case. When the plaintiff wanted to get his coats he found them in the hands of Mr. Bratespiece, the defendant, who is defending before you to-day, who got them from Harris under a contract to make the coats for 50 cents apiece, he says, although the agreement between Meyers and Harris was to have them made for 35 cents apiece. [It would be monstrous when you give a man your articles to make up for a certain sum, if he could go and give them to somebody else to make up for twice that sum and hold them until you paid him. There is no contractual relation, as we call it in the law, between the plaintiff Meyers, and Mr. Bratespiece. His rights were altogether derived through Mr. Harris, and he has to work them out through him. He must look to Harris for his payment, and not to Mr. Meyers. Mr. Meyers had no dealings with him. It is an entirely different case from a mechanic's claim, the right to file which is conferred by express statute upon a subcontractor. That principle of law has no application here whatever. There is no right of retention of the goods for work done upon them except as between the parties themselves or any person claiming through them by mutual agreement.] [For instance, if Mr. Harris had said to Meyers, "I cannot do this work for 35 cents, and I can get it done by Mr. Bratespiece for 50 cents," and Meyers had said "Go on and do it," that would have held Meyers; but nothing of that kind occurred here. Meyers never dealt with Bratespiece in the matter. The law is well settled on this point.] The right of possession to the thing which is the basis of a lien does not exist in favor of a journeyman or day laborer or substituted workman, as in this case, whose possession is the same as that of his employer. He has no other security for his wages than the employer's personal responsibility on the contract or bailment for work.

There being no relation whatever of contract between the plaintiffs, Meyers & Bro., and Mr. Bratespiece, and it being undoubted that these were Meyers' coats, they had a right to take them by writ of replevin; they belonged to them, and your verdict must be in favor of the plaintiffs in this case.

Verdict and judgment for plaintiffs. Defendant appealed.

Errors assigned among others were, (1) in directing verdict for plaintiffs; (2) in entering judgment thereon; (3, 4) portions of charge as above, quoting them.

The specifications of error are overruled and the judgment is affirmed.

Clinton O. Mayer, of Greenwald & Mayer, for appellant. -- The learned court below fell into the error of calling the defendant a journeyman, whereas he was not a journeyman employee, but a contractor: McIntyre v. Carver, 2 Watts & Sargeant, 395.

Bratespiece is in the position of an ordinary contractor with Harris, and as such is entitled to his lien upon the goods for work and labor done: Cross & Bro. v. Knickerbocker, 8 Phila 496; ...