3 Colo. App. 381 | Colo. Ct. App. | 1893
delivered the opinion of the court.
This judgment was taken by default, and the record brought up by the writ contains none of the evidence whereon the decree was entered. From the complaint and the recitals of the decree, it would appear that, during the summer of 1890, Sydney Flinn did work and labor for the Arkansas Land and Canal Company on the canal property proper, and upon certain lands of which it is charged the corporation was the lessee and in possession. The value of the work was about $400. The suit was brought to recover this sum, and evidently to enforce what the plaintiff claimed was a lien against this property. After default a decree was entered
In reality the complaint is in substance nothing more than a statement of a cause of action for money due for work done. In that particular, if the judgment had been simply against the company for so much money, it would have been unassailable. Nothing is better settled in the law than that the lien statutes are in derogation of the common law — creatures purely of the legislative will, and to be strictly construed wherever parties attempt to assert rights under them. In order to entitle a plaintiff to maintain a suit in the nature of a bill in equity to foreclose his lien, he must in his complaint allege everything essential to the existence and establishment of his claim, and by allegations — both specific and general' — ■ bring himself literally within the terms of the statute. Davis v. Alvord, 94 U. S. 545; Pilz v. Killingworth et al., 20 Ore. 432; Ford Gold Mining Co. v. Langford et al., 1 Colo. 62; Anderson v. Bingham, Teague & Co., 1 Colo. Ct. App. 222.
Tested by these simple rules the complaint did not state a cause of action for the foreclosure of a mechanics’ lien. There was no allegation descriptive of the labor performed, from which it could be ascertained whether the work was of the sort which would entitle the claimant to a lien, no averment that a notice of lien had been filed which in its particulars was in conformity with the statute, and generally there was an absence of all allegations from which even inferentially it could be determined that Flinn had ever acquired a right to a lien on the property. Wanting these essentials, the complaint evidently failed to state a cause of action as upon a mechanics’ lien which the plaintiff was entitled to enforce.
There can be no difference in principle between the enforcement of a lien against the line of a road, and the foreclosure of a like claim against a canal which runs for many miles and through different counties. It is wholly unnecessary to determine whether Flinn could enforce his claim against that part of the canal located in Bent county, because he was not entitled by reason of the deficiencies in his complaint to enforce a lien at all. If the case ever reaches the stage, by amendment or otherwise, whereby Flinn becomes entitled to assert his claim, if he has one, the court, in the light of the authorities herein cited, will be able to determine the extent to which he ought to go.
Since the complaint did not state facts sufficient to con
Reversed.