New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1916-07-19
MATTERS AFFECTING COMMON
PEOPLE SETTLED BY STATE
TRIBUNAL.
CONTRACTORS MUST BE CARE
Full HOW THEY USE MONEYS
PAID THEM. .

UdCkS up Cne legislature IN recent act
to protect home builders investment.
In a decision just announced the court
holds constitutional and not class legis-
lation, the mechanics lien" law passed
last year. The law provides that ''the
misuse by a contractor, with intent to
defraud, of moneys paid to him by the
land owner for whom the contractor
is making improvements on the land shall
be larceny" The court holds that the
statute is not legislation resulting in i'm
prisonment for debt.
The decision is the result of a test
case brought by the county attorneys
Office of Hennepin County. Walter
Harris, contractor, had contracted to
build house for Mrs. Augusta Dunn,
$3.50 Aldrich avenue north.
Harris share of the contract included
his purchasing all supplies and building
materials and employing and paying all
laborers. All told he received $616 from
Mrs. Dunn. When this sum had been
paid, she suddenly found her house
attached by various firms selling building
material, on the charge that material
furnished by them had not been paid for.
It developed that Harris had used
for his own purpose the money given
him by Mrs. Dunn to pay for building
material and labor on her house.
On complaint of the county attorneys
office, after Harris had stated his inability
to mssse good the amount used, prose-
cutioh was started under the new law
which makes it grand larceny to '.use
for any purpose other than labor, skill,
material or machinery contributing to
the improvement of building" money
supplied contractor for that building.
The law was attacked by the attorney
for Harris on two counts that it was
class legislation and that it would i'm
prison for debt. Judge Steele overruled
a demurrer based on these counts and
the case went to the higher court with the
result that the validity of the law has
been upheld which means that hereafter
contractors failing to expend moneys
received for material and labor will be
subject to prosecution and conviction
on the charge of grand larceny.
Another Important decision filed was
that holding constitutional the Mime
sofa oil inspection law in its decision on
the appeal Of the Pure Oil Company.
The state sued to recover fees of
$10,499, alleged due from the Pure Oil
company, for inspecting Illuminating
oils and gasoline from FEBRUARY 1,
1915, to April %, 1915, under the oil
inspection law of 1909. The action was
defended on contentious that the COM
modities affected are in interstate COM
merce and the inspection law operates
on them as subjects thereof, that the
fees prescribed are unlawfully excessive,
and that the act is not an exercise of
police powers.
The supreme court, in sustaining the
validity of the law, follows the principles
established in the previous test cases of
the Bartels Oil company. Taking up
the value of the gravity test used by
state inspectors and attacked by the de-
PENDANT, the decision explained that the
court cannot say that the legislature
had no basis for considering this test
some protection of the public against
fraud and imposition, if not against
! I'd anger in the use of gasoline not so tested