California Corrugated Culvert Co. v. Stewart

THE COURT.

This is an action to foreclose a mechanic’s lien. The defendant Stewart was the owner of a 729-acre ranch on which he raised rice. He engaged the plaintiff company to construct an elevator to store the crop, also to make an addition to his barn. Subsequently Stewart borrowed $18,000 from the defendant bank, giving as security a deed of trust on the ranch. Upon Stewart’s default, the plaintiff company and the defendant bank both litigated their claims. The trial court found that the plaintiff’s claim was prior to that of the bank and decreed that its lien should attach to the entire ranch. The defendant bank moved for a new trial, and the court made an order that the motion be denied, but that the findings and judgment should be amended so that the area to which the lien attached should be reduced to a small portion of the land immediately surrounding the elevator and the barn. Several days later the trial judge made a further order amending the original order by eliminating from it the language denying the

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motion and by adding certain recitals in support of its order so restricting the area to which the lien should attach. Judgment was thereafter entered in accordance with the amended findings and order.

The defendant Stewart made no attack on the judgment. The defendant bank did not appeal. The plaintiff appeals and contends that the trial court was in error in confining the lien to the small portion of land immediately surrounding the elevator and barn.

The Mechanic’s Lien Law provides for two distinct categories of liens. They are, first, liens for labor and materials employed or used in the construction of “any building, wharf, bridge, ditch, flume, aqueduct, well”, etc., and, secondly, liens for labor and materials employed and used on mining claims. (Sec. 1183, Code Civ. Proc.) Section 1185 of the same code provides that “the land upon which any building, improvement, well or structure is constructed, together with a convenient space about the same, or so much as may be required for the convenient use and occupation thereof, to be determined by the court on rendering judgment, is also subject to the lien”. In construing section 1185 it has been held uniformly with reference to the second category, that when the labor and materials are employed and used on a mining claim, the mechanic’s lien covers the entire mining claim.