211 N.W. 836 | Minn. | 1927
Lead Opinion
Defendant owns and operates a creamery at Pierz, in Morrison county. The materials, for the price of which the liens are claimed, went into a new creamery building which it erected in the autumn of 1922 and the winter of 1922-1923 upon what counsel designate for convenience as the "new site." Its old building was on the "old site," some 260 feet due east from the new. The old site is an irregular tract of 52 square rods located just outside and east of the platted portion of Pierz. The new site consists of two lots in the platted portion. In the spring of 1923 the old creamery, a frame building, was partially destroyed by fire. Temporary repairs permitted its use until the new building was ready. The materials for which the liens are claimed all went into the new building, having been sold by plaintiffs to the general contractors. The latter having defaulted in payment, a lien statement was filed by each of the plaintiffs.
There is an error common to both of them out of which arises the only issue of this litigation. Because of misinformation received, so it is said, from the register of deeds, the draftsman of the lien statements described the old site by metes and bounds. No reference at all is made to the new site. Otherwise each statement is faultless both as to form and substance. One claims a lien for "building materials" and the other for "materials and brick" furnished to named contractors in the construction for defendant of a creamery building upon the described real estate, the old site. The judgment below rested upon the view that the misdescription was such an inaccuracy as should be disregarded. In consequence *454 it confirmed the liens and directed foreclosure thereof by sale as provided by statute. If the view so taken is correct, and that is the sole question in the case, the judgment should be affirmed.
While the action to enforce a mechanic's lien is of an equitable nature, the remedy, the lien itself, is of statutory and not equitable origin. Therefore equitable principles may be resorted to only for the purposes of procedure. The statute itself must be looked to for the substantive law. Compare Northland Pine Co. v. Melin Bros.
Clearly, the statute requires the statement itself to identify the property to be charged with reasonable certainty. Neither of the statements now in question identifies the property at all. They contain nothing which, unaided by extraneous knowledge of the actual use made of the materials referred to, would have enabled a person familiar with the locality to recognize the "new site" as the property to be charged. In other words, the lien statements do not, in and of themselves, attach to the intended premises. Standing alone, they do not identify the tract even to one familiar with the locality. *455
In that respect they differ from the lien claim involved in Tulloch v. Rogers,
Counsel have given the decisions of other states exhaustive consideration. Helpful as it has been, the proper limitations of an opinion prevent our following it even to the extent of reviewing the authorities. There are distinctions of fact and statute to be noted. But no case has been cited which sustains, under a statute requiring as a condition of the lien a statement or notice which will identify the property, one which wholly fails in that respect. If in our estimate of any of the cases we are wrong, and one or more of them does go to the extreme necessary for plaintiff's case, we must decline to follow. To do so would continue the liens beyond the point where the statute says they cease. This court has never *456
gone any farther than it did in Tulloch v. Rogers, supra, in sustaining lien statements against mere inaccuracies. The present is not a case of mere inaccuracy, of error in part, like a false call. The whole description is false. "The error is of the essence of the description" and fatal. Fernandez v. Burleson,
Among the other Minnesota cases where liens have been sustained as against inaccuracies in the statement are: Russell v. Hayden,
Errors of description were held fatal in Lingren v. Nilsen,
In this last case was expressed what we conceive to be the correct principle of decision under a statute, such as ours, which requires identification of the property but waives mere inaccuracies. It is that an inaccurate statement may be disregarded only if, after eliminating false, inaccurate and misleading parts, there remains in the statement sufficient to identify the intended premises with reasonable certainty. The application of that principle is fatal to both liens now under consideration. It follows that, in so far as it sustains them, the judgment must be reversed.
So ordered.
Dissenting Opinion
I dissent. Evans v. Sanford,
Dissenting Opinion
I am inclined to dissent. The premises to be described in the lien statement include the improvement, and in two of the liens this is described as a creamery building erected for the owner by Lovgren Hagstrom, contractors. There was no other building of that description being erected in the little village at the time, and it was located upon the government subdivision named in the lien statement but outside the metes and bounds given. I think this was an error which under § 8558 should not defeat the lien as against the owner who was in no way prejudiced by the error.
