123 Ga. 723 | Ga. | 1905
The plaintiff had no contractual relation with the Peters Land Company. Neither had it any contractual relation with Daniel Brothers, the tenants of the Peters Land Company. Its contractual relation was solely with the Gale Manufacturing Company, which sustained an independent contractual relation with Daniel Brothers. The question, therefore, is whether, under the law of this State, under such a condition of affairs, the plaintiff can assert a lien against the Peters Land Company, an entire stranger to it in every way. The provision of law under which this right to a lien is claimed is found in the Civil Code, § 2801, par. 2, as amended by the act of 1899. As amended that paragraph reads: “ When work done or material furnished for the improvement of real estate is done or may be furnished upon the employment of a contractor, or some other person than the owner, then, and in that case the lien given by this section shall attach upon the real estate improved, as against such true owner, for the amount of the work done, or material furnished, unless such true owner shows that such lien has been waived in writing, or
Thus interpreting the statute, it would mean that a materialman who furnished material for the improvement of real estate to one who occupied the legal relation of a contractor, or one who had some contractual relation with the true owner in connection with the improvements to be made, would have a lien, and that no one else would. The word contractor is not to be construed in its technical sense, which would embrace any person who had any contract of any character, but is to be given its limited, colloquial sense, meaning a person engaged in the business of making contracts for the improvement of real estate, and the other persons referred to in the statute embrace that class who may furnish material for the improvement of real estate but may not be engaged in a business commonly known as the business of a contractor. . Before a lien can arise against the owner of the property, there must be some link of a contractual nature which will connect the furnisher of the material, directly or indirectly, with the owner, and it could never have been contemplated that- an entire stranger to the owner and an entire stranger to every one with whom the owner had dealt in reference to the property should, by the mere-furnishing of material to be used in improving the owner’s property, be entitled to a lien. . Giving to the words above quoted the meaning we have given to them will not render them entirely useless and meaningless in the statute, and at the same time such a construction will prevent the statute from operating harshly upon all owners of real estate; the question whether real estate shall be improved Being left, under any other construction, to the discretion of entire strangers to the true owner, and not to those with whom the owner has dealt in relation -to the matter of the improvement. Whether the'glass furnished to the tenants of the store, subject to be removed, and capable of being removed without injury to the freehold, at the expiration of the tenancy, would be under any circumstances an improvement of real estate as against the true owner, we will not now undertake to decide. The plaintiff did not stand in any relation, directly or indirectly, to the owner, which would authorize a claim of hen against it under the existing laws of this State. There was no error in sustaining the general demurrer of the Peters Land Company.
Judgment affirmed.