50 Pa. 258 | Pa. | 1865
The opinion of the court was. delivered, by
The fund to be distributed in 'the court below, came from a sale of six acres of ground, including a saw-mill, built upon the same, by one who held under articles of agreement for the purchase of the ground. The mechanic’s claim was for machinery and castings furnished for the saw-mill. A deed was made after the building of the mill was commenced, and the vendor took a judgment for the remainder of the purchase-money, which was entered on the day of the delivery of his conveyance. While it is true that the lien of the material-man dates from the commencement of the building, his claim of priority over the vendor’s judgment for purchase-money is founded in a misconception of the estate bound by his claim at the time of its commencement. Savoy v. Jones, 1 Rawle 350, and Holdship v. Abercrombie, 9 Watts 52, did decide that, under the Act of 1806, a sale under á mechanic’s claim carried a greater interest than that which might belong to the person who procured the building to be erected. But the Act of 28th April 1840, § 24, gave to the Revised Act‘of 1836 a different operation, and it was so held in O’Connor v. Warner, 4 W. & S. 223. Under this law the lien of the mechanic is restrained to the estate of the person in possession, at whose instance the building is erected. It is without doubt, therefore, that Neff the vendor, when he conveyed to the Ankenys, transmitted to them a different estate, which had not before vested in George Ankeny, viz., the legal title, and his estate represented by the unpaid purchase-money, which belonged
Judgment affirmed.