Carolina Portland Cement Co. v. Hitt Lumber & Box Co.

141 Tenn. 210
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 15, 1918
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 141 Tenn. 210 (Carolina Portland Cement Co. v. Hitt Lumber & Box Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carolina Portland Cement Co. v. Hitt Lumber & Box Co., 141 Tenn. 210 (Tenn. 1918).

Opinion

Ms. Justice Halt,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In March, 1917, the defendant Chattanooga Manufacturing Company, a corporation doing business in the city of Chattanooga, Tenn., contracted with one A. F. Hahn to construct for it a factory building on a lot owned by it situated in said city, and which is fully described in the bill filed in this cause, in accordance with plans and specifications which had been prepared by an architect. Under the contract Hahn was to furnish all of the materials for said building, except the lumber and millwork. These materials the defendant itself agreed to furnish, and pursuant to said agreement it contracted with the Hitt Lumber & Box Company, also a corporation doing business in the city of Chattanooga, and a dealer in and a planer of lumber, for the lumber and millwork for said building. The Hitt Lumber & Box Company, not having in stock the flooring and certain heavy framing timbers required for said building, contracted with the complainant, who is a corporation chartered and organized under the laws of the State of South Carolina, and has an office and place of business at Birmingham, Ala., and was engaged in the manufacture and sale of lumber, to furnish the flooring and timbers required for said building, amounting to 128,340 feet, at the prices of $26.50 and $18.95 per 1,000 feet, less freight to Chattanooga.

Complaint had furnished under its contract with the Hitt Lumber & Box Company, materials to the amount of $4,202.61, when said company was placed in the [212]*212bands of a receiver and was later adjudged a bankrupt. Thereafter, the remainder of said materials, to be furnished by complainant under its contract with the Hitt Lumber & Bos Company, were furnished direct to the defendant Chattanooga Manufacturing Company, under a contract entered into with it by the complainant. The materials furnished to the Manufacturing Company, under its contract with the complainant, have been paid for, but none of the materials furnished under its contract with the Hitt Lumber & Box Company were paid for.

The bill in this cause was filed by the complainant against both the Chattanooga Manufacturing Company and the Hitt Lumber & Box Company (the latter company being sued upon authority given by the bankrupt court) to recover of said defendants for the materials furnished by complainant to the Hitt Lumber & Box Company, and to have a furnisher’s lien declared upon the property of the defendant Chattanooga Manufacturing Company for its satisfaction.

The theory of the bill was that the Chattanooga Manufacturing Company and the Hitt Lumber & Box Company entered into a contract by which the latter company, either as the agent of, or as the original contractor of, the former company, undertook and agreed to manufacture or procure for the said Manufacturing Company certain timbers and flooring, which the bill alleges were to be cut and shaped to sizes and dimensions required for the complainant’s building. The bill alleged that notice was given the Chattanooga Manufacturing Company that a lien was claimed upon [213]*213the property upon which said improvement had been made, in accordance with the statute.

The Chattanooga Manufacturing Company in its answer, specifically denied that complainant was contracted with by the Hitt Lumber & Box Company, either as its agent or as its original contractor, as alleged in the bill. It also denied that complainant had given the notice required by statute within the time required, which was necessary to perfect a lien upon its property for the materials furnished.

Upon the hearing the chancellor decreed that the complaint was a furnisher of materials to one with whom the owner had contracted for the furnishing of materials; that the Hitt Lumber & Box Company was not the agent of the owner of the property in making the contract with the complainant, but in making said contract acted in its own behalf and for his own benefit; that therefore complainant was not entitled to a lien under section 1981 of the Code (Shannon’s, section 3531), nor was the Hitt Lumber & Box Company a “mechanic, founder, or machinist,” within the meaning of section 1986 of the Code (Shannon’s, section 3540); and that therefore complainant was not entitled to a lien on the property of the defendant Manufacturing Company, or to a personal judgment against that company, and the bill was dismissed in so far as it sought such relief; but a decree was rendered in favor of the complainant against the Hitt Lumber & Box Company for the amount sued for, with interest from the date of the filing of the bill.

[214]*214From so much, of said decree as denied complainant relief against the Chattanooga Manufacturing Company the complainant has appealed, and h'as assigned errors.

The question presented by the assignments of error is: Do the facts bring the complainant within tbe provisions of the mechanic’s lien law of this State, .and is it entitled to have its claim declared a lien upon the property of the Chattanooga Manufacturing Company, with whom it occupied no contractual relation?

Section 1981 of the Code (Shannon’s Section 3531), gives a lien: “upon any lot of ground or tract of land upon which a house has been constructed, built, or repaired, or fixtures or machinery furnished or erected, or improvements made, by special contract with the owner or his agent, in favor of the mechanic or undertaker, founder or machinist, who does the work or any part of the work, or furnishes the materials or any part of the materials,” etc.

This section is, in substance, the first section of Acts 1846, chapter 118. By section 1986 of the Code (Shannon’s, Section 3540) this lien is extended to “every journeyman or other person employed by such mechanic, founder, or machinist, to work on the buildings, fixtures, machinery, or improvements, or to furnish material for the same.”

This section is, in substance, the second section of the act of 1846.

In Greenwood v. Tennessee Mfg. Co., 2 Swan, 130, it was held that the merchant who furnished the machinery by contract with the owner to be used in erecting [215]*215a factory was not entitled to the lien provided by this act. The reason assigned by the court was that the lien was only given in favor of such “mechanic or undertaker.” The court said:

“Mr. Greenwood’s contract was with' the owner, and had no connection with the undertaker!”

In Stevens v. Wells, 4 Sneed, 387, the complainants, who were lumber dealers, sold to the owner lumber to build a house on his land. ■ The same not having-been paid for, suit was brought to have a lien declared on the land upon which the improvement had been erected under the act of 1846 for the satisfaction of the debt growing out of the sale of the lumber. The court, in construing both sections of the act, said:

“Complainants are within neither of these provisions. They are neither mechanics who have worked upon the house, nor are they undertakers for its construction, nor have they furnished materials to the mechanic or undertaker and given the owner notice, as required by the statute. They have simply sold the owner a bill of lumber, for which the statute gives them no lien, and they stand as other creditors of the owner. See Greenwood et al. v. Tennessee Mfg. Co., 2 Swan, 130.”

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Bluebook (online)
141 Tenn. 210, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carolina-portland-cement-co-v-hitt-lumber-box-co-tenn-1918.