158 Mo. App. 179 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1911
This is a suit to enforce a mechanic’s lien. Plaintiff recovered a personal judgment against the ..principal defendant, Ware, owner of the premises, and a judgment sustaining the lien against the property. Defendants, other than Ware, the owner, prosecute the appeal.
Plaintiff, an incorporated company, furnished material, consisting of lumber, millwork, hardware, etc., under one general contract, to Ware, who erected the three buildings involved, and defendants who prosecute the present appeal are trustees and beneficiaries in certain deeds' of trust covering those buildings and the lots on which they are situate. Ware, the owner of the premises, made no defense to the suit, but the other defendants, the trustees and beneficiaries in the deeds of trust, sought to defeat the lien on the grounds,
The lien account was objected to as insufficient and an argument touching the matter is now urged before us. The items of the account are abbreviated as is usual in such cases. Abbreviations such as “Y. P. Drop Sdg.” for yellow pine drop siding, etc., are employed throughout the account.' The account is parcel of the lien document filed under the statute, which recites that the account below set forth is for lumber, millwork, hardware, and material furnished by plaintiff under one contract and at the special instance and request of W. M. Ware to and for the buildings and improvements described as follows, etc. (describing them). As an illustration of its character, the following nine items are set forth:
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■ At the conclusion of the entire account, it is recited the above and foregoing materials were furnished continuously on, from and between April 15, 1907,- to, until and on July 17, 1907, both dates inclusive. The affidavit accompanying the account de-r dares it to be just and true in all respects and that the items and things therein enumerated were fur-
It appears that, at the time Ware, the owner, was engaged in building the three houses involved here, which were numbered 2745, 2747, 2749 Belt ave-, nue, St. Louis, he was likewise engaged in erecting
Besides moving the court to direct a verdict for them on that score, defendants requested an instruc
“The court shall ascertain, by a fair trial in the usual way, the amount of the indebtedness for which the lien is prosecuted, and may render judgment therefor in any sum not exceeding the amount claimed in the demand filed with the lien, together with interest and costs, although the creditor may have unintentionally failed to enter in his account filed the full amount of credits to which the debtor may be entitled.”
The statute in plain terms authorizes a judgment for any sum not exceeding the amount claimed in the lien account, although plaintiff may have unintentionally failed to enter all the credits to which Ware was entitled thereon. Unless it appears the lienor intentionally omitted credits or charged items unduly, the matter touching the integrity thereof is one for the jury, and in this view the court very properly refused the instructions above requested. [Uthoff v. Gerhard, 42 Mo. App. 256.]
Though the failure to credit the $600 order, which specified on its face that it should be applied upon the account pertaining to numbers 2475-2479, was obviously either intentional or careless, it cannot be said as a matter of law that it was intentional and therefore operated the destruction of the lien right, when the proof tends to show it was mere carelessness on the part of the bookkeeper, for carelessness is not intentional wrong and it is intentional wrong only which the law denounces on pain of defeating the lien. In other words, mere mistakes and carelessness are condoned, while intentional wrong, as in purposely omit