Wall v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 04 September 1874
• Citation: 115 Mass. 429
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: George G. Wall & another v. John H. Robinson & others

115 Mass. 429

George G. Wall & another v. John H. Robinson & others

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

September 4, 1874

Suffolk. Petition to enforce a lien for work and labor under the St of 1872, c. 318, § 1. The respondents demurred to the petition, and at the hearing in the Superior Court, the demurrer was sustained, and the petitioners appealed to this court. The facts of the case appear in the opinion of the court.

Demurrer overruled.

W. S & W. F. Slocum, for the petitioners.

J. R Churchill, (A. Churchill with him,) for the respondents.

Morton J. Wells & Endicott, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Morton

The petition, as amended, alleges that the petitioners performed and furnished labor in the erection of buildings and structures, to wit, three dwelling-houses and one stable upon a lot of land owned by the defendants, by virtue of a contract with one Barnard and with the consent of the owners of the lot. By the contract, as stated in the amendment, the petitioners were to do certain work specified, upon the houses and the stable, and were to be paid one hundred and forty dollars for each house and thirty dollars for the stable. We cannot construe the petition as alleging that the work upon each building was furnished under a separate contract applicable to such building, but the fair construction is that the work was done upon all the buildings under one contract. It is alleged to have been furnished "by virtue of a contract," embracing all the work. The question is thus presented whether a mechanic who has performed and furnished labor upon several buildings situated upon one lot owned by the same person, under an entire contract, has a lien under our statutes.

In Landers v. Dexter, 106 Mass. 531, the petitioner claimed a lien upon twenty houses, treating the whole as one estate. It appeared that a portion of his debt arose under a contract to perform labor on twelve of the houses, and another portion of it under an entirely independent contract to labor upon the other eight houses. It was held that he had no lien which attached to the whole estate. But the court did not decide whether a lien under either of his contracts attached to the twelve or the eight houses which were the subject of that contract. That question is now presented.

The statutes are designed to give to the mechanic who by his labor and skill enhances the value of an estate the security of a lien upon the estate to the...