Armstrong Cork Co. v. Merchants' Refrigerating Co.

184 F. 199, 107 C.C.A. 93, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 5081
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit·Decided December 28, 1910·No. No. 3,385·Published·Cited by 30 cases

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

This is a suit to foreclose a mechanic’s lien. The-materials and labor were furnished to a lessee, the defendant, the Merchants’ Refrigerating Company, a corporation, to enable it to insulate a building which had been erected by the lessor, the defendant, Morris Lyon, as trustee, on land owned by him. The hill Of the complainant was repeatedly amended, and the suit was finally submitted to the court below on the last amended bill and numerous demurrers and pleas, which presented two questions: Was the suit of the complainant barred by its laches? and, if not, did the amended bill state facts sufficient to show that the complainant was entitled to a lien upon the interest of the lessor in the land and building? The court below answered tlie first question in the affirmative, dismissed the bill in pursuance to that answer, and did not- consider or decide the second question. The facts which conditioned the determination of the first question were these:

The statute of Missouri, which creates the mechanic’s lien, limits the time within which a suit may be brought to enforce it to 90 days after the date of the filing of the statement of the lien with the clerk of the court. Rev. St. Mo. 1899, § 4218 (Ann. St. 1906, p. 2310). Under the established practice in the courts of the state of Missouri such suits may be treated and tried as actions at law. but in the courts of the United States they are suits in equity. Scheffield Furnace Co. v. Witherow, 149 U. S. 574, 579, 13 Sup. Ct. 936, 37 L. Ed. 853; Hatcher v. Hendrie & Bolthoff Mfg. & Supply Co., 133 Fed. 267, 271, 68 C. C. A. 19, 23. One of the defendants in the suit in hand was Willard P. Hall, who, as receiver and trustee in bankruptcy of the Refrigerating Compan}'-, had succeeded to the interest of that lessee in the land and building. Complainant’s counsel had prepared their petition to foreclose the lien for filing in the state court on the assurance of Mr. I-Iall that he would be officially .discharged before'the ninetieth day after the filing of the statement of lien. The ninetieth day was February 7, 1908, and on February 6, 1908, Hall told the counsel for the complainant that an obstacle had appeared which would prevent his discharge until after the ninetieth day. Then it became necessary to make Mr. Hall a defendant in the suit, and counsel found that there was no federal district judge in the Western district of Missouri from whom they could obtain leave to sue the receiver and trustee, and they went to Red Oak, Iowa, and obtained, from Judge McPherson, who had been assigned to the Missouri district, an order permitting them to sue the officer of the federal court, hut the judg'e requested that the suit be broüght in the federal court if counsel found [203] that that court had jurisdiction of the controversies. Thereupon the counsel for the complainant inserted the jurisdictional averments in the petition which they had drawn and filed it on the ninetieth day, hut did not have time to redraft it in the usual form of a bill in equity. On the same day a summons at law was issued upon the petition and delivered to the marshal who subsequently returned it without service on April 27, 11)08, by direction of complainant’s counsel who learned on Saturday, February 8, 1908, that subpoenas in chancery instead of a summons at law should have been issued, and on Monday, February 10, 1908, they caused such subpoenas to be issued and to he served upon the defendants on that day and the succeeding one. On February 12, 1908, and before any copy of their petition had been taken out of the clerk’s office they filed an amended petition in the customary form of a bill in equity, except that it contained no prayer for process, nor did the original petition.

Counsel for the defendants argue (1) that the original petition was filed in an action at law on the ninetieth day, and while a summons was issued none was served so that the action at law was never commenced; (2) that neither the original petition, nor the amended petition which was filed oil February 13, 1908, were effective as bills in equity because neither contained any prayer for process; and (3) that "the amended petition could not constitute an amendment of the original petition because it was a bill in a suit in equity, while the original petition was a complaint in an action at law; and (4) that the amended petition and the subpoenas were too late to commence' a suit in equity to foreclose the mechanic’s lien, because the former was not filed and the latter were not issued until several days after the expiration of the ninety days from the date of the filing of the statement of the lien, and it was indispensable to the maintenance of the suit that the- former should have been filed and the latter should have been issued within the ninety days.

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Armstrong Cork Co. v. Merchants' Refrigerating Co., 184 F. 199, 107 C.C.A. 93, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 5081 (8th Cir. 1910).

184 F. 199 (Armstrong Cork Co. v. Merchants' Refrigerating Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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