9 Watts 52 | Pa. | 1839
The opinion of the court was delivered by
By the act of the 1st of April, 1803, which was the first that was'passed on the subject, the house or building only was made subject to the payment of debts created on account of materials furnished or work done in constructing it, when concracted for by the owner thereof himself. But as the great object was to make mechanics and others secure in receiving payment for their labour performed, and materials provided in the erection of buildings, it was found that giving them a lien on the building only, where the debts were created by the owner himself, by his contracting for the labour and materials used in erecting it, was a very inadequate security: Because in many, if not in most instances, such debts were created upon contracts made with undertakers merely who were not the owners of the buildings, but had contracted with the owners to put them tip. This, therefore, induced the passage of the act of the 17th of March, 1806, which made every dwelling-house, or other building, thereafter constructed and erected, liable to the payment of the debts contracted (omitting the words “by the owners thereof,” which were in the act of 1803,) for, or by reason of any work done, or materials found and provided by any brickmaker, bricklayer, stonecutter, mason, lime merchant, carpenter, painter and glazier, ironmonger, blacksmith, plasterer and lumber merchant, or any other person or persons employed in furnishing materials for, or in the erecting and constructing such house or other building, before any other lien, which originated subsequent to the commencement of the said house or other building. The omission of the above words seems to be the most, if not the only, material difference between these two acts: and as the latter repealed the former, the change must be consisidered the result of design on the part of the legislature. And the only motive which can be discovered, that will account rationally for this change, would seem to be the one already suggested: and hence the words “ by the owner or owners thereof” were left out
Judgment affirmed.