Case ID: walker_4/html/0231-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

McMILLEN’S APPEAL.
    A list of names with, amounts set opposite to them, given to the-Sheriff, with á verbal statement that they were labor claims under the Act of April 9, 1872, is not a sufficient notice in writing.
    Appeal from Common Pleas of Forest County. No. 186 November Term 1874.
    The Sheriff levied and sold the personal property of Palmer & Childs, a firm composed of D. Palmer, J. Childs, and L.- M., Childs. The Sheriff also had at the time of sale, an execution on a judgment obtained by tlie First National Bank of Corry,,' against J. & L. M. Childs. Two days before the sale, appellant’s attorney handed the Sheriff a list of names with amounts set opposite, stating that they were laborers and each entitled to a lien under the Act of April 9, 1872. P. Laws, 47, for the amount set opposite their respective names. The Sheriff paid the execution in full, on which the sale was made; and then paid the balence into Court. An auditor was appointed ta distribute the fund, and awarded it to the appellants, who claimed a lien as laborers.
    The Court of Common Pleas, however, overruled the Auditor’s report, and awarded the fund to the bank in the following opinion, per:
    Wetmore, P. J.
    At common law, a lien on personal property consists in a tnere right to retain possession until the debt or charge is paid. Thus liens generally arise from bailment, are founded in usage, and only have force and validity while the goods are in possession of the bailor. The ordinary cases of liens are factors, innkeepers, warehouse men, common carriers, &c. In all these cases, in order to create a lien, there must be a delivery of the property. It must come into the possession of the party claiming the lien, or his agents.
    The ordinary understanding of a lien on personal property, is the right to detain the property in possession till the claim or charge constituting a lien is satisfied. By the first section of the Act of the 9th of April, 1872, entitled “An Act for the better protection of the wages of mechanics, miners, laborers and others, Pamphlet Laws, 1872, pages 47 and 48, it is provided that the wages of laborers, not exceeding six months immediately preceding the sale, and not exceeding two hundred dollars, shall be a lien, and shall be preferred and first paid out of the proceeds, &c. This part of the act only relates to personal property, as the claim to be a lien on real estate must be filed in the Prothonotary’s office.
    The second section of the act provides that it shall be lawful for such laborers and others to give notice in writing of their claim or claims, and the amount thereof, to the officer executing the writ, at any time before the actual sale of the property levied on, and the officer shall pay out of the proceeds the amount which each laborer is justly and legally entitled to receive.
    The statute creates a lien on personal property without any record, statement, or memorandum of the same filed or reported in any place. No act on the part of the claimant is required to give it force, and no possession of the property on which the lien exists is necessary to give notice to creditors or vendees of its existence.
    The remedy is the means employed to enforce a right. The only remedy provided in this act is contained in the second section, which says it shall be lawful for the claimant to give notice in writing of his claim and the amount thereof at any time before the actual sale of the property levied on. In proceedings at law the claim must be sued within the time required and the pleadings, trial, judgment and execution must be according to the legally established rule.
    A claim giving a complete right of action is useless unless it is asserted according to the prescribed modes; the right can only be established and enforced according to the legal remedies. The first section of the act in giving time creates the lien, and the second section provides a time and way for the claimant to to give notice of his claim.
    The provisions of the second section were not complied with, and no notice given as therein provided; the claimants gave no notice until after the Sheriff’s sale.
    As a rule of exposition, statutes are to be construed in reference to the principles of common law: Dwarris on Statutes, 185. Liens have been looked upon with jealousy, being considered as encroachments on the common law: Bouvier’s Law Dicered as encroachment on the common law : Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, 14th ed., title Liens, vol. 2, p. 47. The parties claiming ■the benefits of the lien given by the statute should, therefore, have given notice in writing, as therein directed. Execution creditors, the Sheriff and lien claimants, would then know what there is against the property to be sold, and regulate their action. To sustain the claim in this case permits the sale of property with secret liens against it, which the execution creditor has no means of ascertaining, and after the sale he is deprived of the fruit of his execution by awarding them to the claimants of a fund made by the sale.
    
      The lien created by the statute is on the property, but the present claim is on the fund arising from its sale. To construe the statute with reference to the principles of common law so as to avoid secret liens at the time of the Sheriff’s sale, requires the claimant to give notice to the officer in writing, before the sale, of his claim and the amount thereof.
    The report of the auditor is, therefore, reformed and corrected as follows: The item $967.70 allowed to claims for labor is stricken out and that amount of money is appropriated to fi. fa. No. 43, December Term, 1873. With this modification the report of the auditor is confirmed.
    McMillen and other labor claimants then appealed to the Supreme Court.
    
      Theodore S. Wilson, Esq., for appellants,
    argued that the notice was sufficient, and cited, Calhoun vs. Mahon, 14 Pa. 56; Kelly’s Appeal, 16 Pa. 59; and McClintock vs. Rush, 63 Pa. 203.
    
      Bowman, Esq., contra.
    
   The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Common' Pleas on November 2nd, 1874, in the following opinion:

Per Curiam.

The paper called the notice in this case was clearly insufficient. It was but a memorandum of the names of certain persons and certain sums set opposite their names. It did not purport to refer to the property of Childs, or Childs and Palmer, or to any lien thereon, or the execution, and gave notice of nothing. To give it any effect it would have to be helped out by a verbal notice of the character of the persons named, and the nature of their claims, and also of the intention of these parties to come in upon the funds to be raised by the Sheriff’s sale.

It was in fact, therefore, no notice in writing such as is required by the Laborers’ Lien Law of 9th April, 1872, P. L., pp. 47, 48.

The necessity of this notice is so well shown in the opinion of the Judge below it is unnecessary to say more.

Judgment affirmed.