218 Pa. 581 | Pa. | 1907
Opinion by
By section 6 of the mechanic’s lien Act of June 4,1901, P. L. 431, as amended by the Act of April 22, 1903, P. L. 255, a
The Smith Construction Company entered into a contract for the construction of a sewer for the city of York. The St. Mary’s Sewer Pipe Company furnished material for the sewer, delivering the last of it on December 9,1904. On January 27, 1905, the construction company passed into the hands of a receiver. On June 9,1905, the St. Mary’s Sewer Pipe Company filed Avith the mayor of the city of York a notice of its claim, the intention, stated in the notice, being that it was given in accordance with the provisions of the act of June 4, 1901, as amended by the act of April 22,1903. The notice of the claim is admitted to have been sufficiently formal and set forth facts which would have entitled the company to a lien as against a private owner, except that it did not state when and how the notice was given to the owner of its intention to file its claim, which is required by section 8 of the act of 1901, to be given at least one month before the claim is filed. On October 8, 1906, the city of York asked leave, and permission was given it, to pay into court the sum of $5,614.33, the balance due on the sewer contract, and an auditor was appointed to distribute
A mechanic’s lien is a pure creature of the statute, and compliance with statutory requirements is necessary to its validity: Wharton et al. v. Investment Co., 180 Pa. 168; Knelly v. Horwath, 208 Pa. 487. Whether these requirements may be vain or useless is never a question for the courts. Without legislative authority a mechanic’s lien cannot be filed, and when the right to file one is given by that branch of the state government which alone can give it, statutory conditions and requirements must be observed and followed, with no question as to the wisdom of the legislature in prescribing them.
• It is not to be questioned that if the St. Mary’s Sewer Pipe Company had furnished the material to a contractor with a private owner of an improvement, its failure to give notice of its intention to file a claim would be fatal to its right to a mechanic’s lien. In the section of the act in which permission is given a subcontractor to file his claim for material furnished for a public improvement, in lieu of what would be his lien against the property of a private owner, the language is: “ Any subcontractor who has furnished labor or materials thereto may give a written and duly sworn notice to the commonwealth, or any division or subdivision thereof, or any purely public agency thereunder, being the owner of the structure or other improvement, setting forth the facts which would have entitled him to a lien as against the structure or other improvement of a private