Ringle v. Works

• Decision Date: 26 May 1896
• Citation: 149 N.Y. 439,44 N.E. 175
• Parties: RINGLE et al. v. WALLIS IRON WORKS et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

149 N.Y. 439

44 N.E. 175

RINGLE et al.

v.WALLIS IRON WORKS et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 26, 1896.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, First department.

Action by Jacob and George Ringle against the Wallis Iron Works and the Southern Pacific Company. A judgment of the special term in favor of plaintiff (24 N. Y. Supp. 757) was modified by the general term (28 N. Y. Supp. 107), and plaintiffs appeal. Modified.

Gray, J., dissenting. 28 N. Y. Supp. 107, reversed.

T. C. Ennever, for appellants.

William G. Wilson, for respondents.

O'BRIEN, J.

This was an action to foreclose a mechanic's lien, and the special term sustained the plaintiff's claim and granted the relief demanded in the complaint. The general term, however, has modified the judgment in a very material respect, holding that the plaintiffs had not established the lien, and were not entitled to any relief but a personal judgment for the amount of the demand, which was reduced by the deduction of four months' interest.

The trial court has found that, on July 15, 1891, the plaintiffs made a written contract with the defendant the Wallis Iron Works to perform certain work and furnish certain materials in the construction of a freight shed on a pier in the North river, in the city of New York. The plaintiffs' part of the work was to furnish and complete the tin roofing and painting thereof, the galvanized iron work, including cornices, leaders, etc., according to specifications attached to and made part of the contract. The price to be paid by the defendant for this work was $3,259. It has also been found that, prior to the execution of this agreement, the defendant the Wallis Iron Works had entered into a contract with the Southern Pacific Company to erect the shed and furnish all the materials for the sum of $17,500. The trial court found that the plaintiffs had substantially performed this contract on the 30th of December, 1891, and within 90 days thereafter, not having been paid, they filed the notice of lien. The notice stated, in substance, that the contract had been performed, and that the price stipulated to be paid was due. The learned general term has held that these statements in the notice were false, and the notice thereby vitiated, and, as a result, no lien attached. I think that this conclusion cannot be sustained upon any fair construction of the statute or the facts in the case, or upon general principles of equity or justice.

The mechanic's lien law (Laws 1885, c. 342) contains within itself the principle of construction which the courts are to apply in considering its various provisions. It is declared to be a remedial statute, to be liberally construed in aid of every beneficial purpose which was contemplated in its enactment, and that a substantial compliance with its provisions will be sufficient to uphold the lien. Section 25. It was, doubtless, intended that the notice of lien should contain a truthful statement of the facts, since it was required to be verified by the oath of the party making the claim; and this is generally true of every pleading or other paper intended to be the foundation of a judicial proceeding. But if, for any reason, it should turn out that it was not true in every particular, does it follow that it is wholly void and ineffectual to create the lien? It is quite certain that the statute itself does not, in terms, declare any such result as a consequence of any statement in the notice which may be shown to be untrue. Whateverauthority there may be to support the view that a notice of lien is void or ineffectual in consequence of untruthful statements of fact is the result of judicial construction, and not of any express declaration of the statute. This court has not yet been committed, so far as I have been able to ascertain, to the doctrine that a party, by inserting statements of fact in the notice of lien which are shown to be untrue, thereby forfeits the right to a lien and renders the notice void or ineffectual to create a lien. Cases have been cited from the supreme court and other courts in support of this proposition. We will not now stop to inquire whether this qualification has been properly ingrafted upon the statute, and, if so, to what limitations such a rule should be subjected. It is quite clear that the cases refer to statements in the notice that are not only untrue but willfully and intentionally false in some important or material respect. Foster v. Schneider, 50 Hun, 151, 2 N. Y. Supp. 875;Close v. Clark (Com. Pl.) 9 N. Y. Supp. 538. In the opinion of the learned general term in this case that principle is clearly recognized, and the effect of an untrue statement in the notice limited to such cases. It is obvious that the liberal construction which the legislature intended should accompany the administration of the statute will not permit a lien to be defeated upon grounds that are less substantial.

There is no finding in this case that any statement in the notice was willfully or intentionally false. On the contrary, the learned trial judge, when requested by the defendant, refused to find even that any of the statements were false. He did find, as we have seen, that, when the notice was filed, the plaintiffs had substantially performed their contract. The lien has been defeated by a resort to the evidence in the case, from which the following facts appear, and were found by the learned trial judge: The contract required the plaintiffs to construct, in the old portion of the shed, two new gangway openings, including frames and doors, The plaintiffs did not make these openings but by what the trial court has, in my judgment, very properly designated an honest mistake, supposed that they had completed the contracton the 30th of December, 1891, and left the...