Hackett v. California Laundry

FOX, J.

Plaintiff rented a furnished house to a tenant who ran up an unpaid laundry bill with defendant of $161.33. Defendant now has in its possession several bundles of laundry which were part of the furnishings of the house and owned by the plaintiff, on which, however, it claims a lien not only for laundering these particular articles but also for previously accrued charges against the tenant. Plaintiff brought this action to recover possession of these articles or the value thereof. Judgment was rendered giving defendant a lien for the entire unpaid account. From this judgment plaintiff appeals.

Defendant bases its claim for a lien principally upon the provisions of section 3051 of the Civil Code. The pertinent part of the section reads as follows: “laundry proprietors and persons conducting a laundry business, have a general lien, dependent on possession, upon all personal property in their hands belonging to a customer, for the balance due them from such customer for laundry work”. It will be noted that the lien is created against personal property “belonging-to” a customer. What, then, do these words mean ? In our opinion, giving these words their natural and ordinary meaning, they are equivalent, when used to designate the legal relationship between a person and property, to “the property of” or “owned by”. They

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imply ownership. (Webster’s New International Dictionary;

San Francisco

v.

McGovern,

28 Cal. App. 491, 500, 501 [152 Pac. 980];

State Land Settlement Board

v.

Henderson,

197 Cal. 470, 480 [241 Pac. 560]; 7 Cor. Jur. 1039, 1040.) Therefore, since the laundry was not owned by the customer the asserted lien thereon is not effective against the real owner

This conclusion finds further support in the wording of the section. In the earlier part of it provision is made for a lien where a person “makes, alters or repairs any article of personal property, at the request of the owner, or