Case Name: James M. ANDERSON et al., Appellants, v. Morris SOKOLIK and Florence Sokolik, his wife, Appellees
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1956-05-23
Citations: 88 So. 2d 511
Docket Number: 
Parties: James M. ANDERSON et al., Appellants, v. Morris SOKOLIK and Florence Sokolik, his wife, Appellees.
Judges: THOMAS and HOBSON, JJ., and FLOYD, Associate Justice, concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 88
Pages: 511–518

Head Matter:
James M. ANDERSON et al., Appellants, v. Morris SOKOLIK and Florence Sokolik, his wife, Appellees.
Supreme Court of Florida. En Banc.
May 23, 1956.
Rehearing Denied July 19, 1956.
Harry B. Smith, Miami Beach, Smathers, Thompson, Maxwell & Dyer, Feibelman & Friedman, Loftin, Anderson, Scott, McCarthy & Preston, Charles F. Zokvic, Fogle & Fordham and Frank C. Oldham, Miami, for appellants.
A. J. Kaplan, Miami Beach, for appellees.
. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and Proceedings originally drafted the language of the Florida Mechanics’ Lien Law and it was adopted with only minor revision. The particular sentence under discussion here was adopted in the exact language of the original uniform law. The footnote explaining the use of the sentence states: “It is equitable that the property of a lessor who has, by contract, required a lessee to improve it should be subject to lien. It is no hardship since he is thoroughly amare of the improvement.” (Emphasis supplied.) P. 617, footnote 32, Handbook of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Law and Proceedings, 1930.

Opinion:
TERRELL, Justice.
A brief factual recital would clarify the atmosphere. On April 26, 1951, the Solo-mons executed a 99-year lease to Ocean Park Company, a Florida corporation, which became indebted to Ozac, Inc., a Florida corporation, in a large sum as evidenced by promissory note secured by mortgage deed describing the 99-year lease; that the said note and mortgage deed were purchased by and were assigned to the plaintiffs (the Sokoliks) and recorded in Mortgage Book 360 at page 220; that Ocean Park Company constructed a 30 room building on said property, 19 rooms of which were furnished and all of which were encumbered by the mortgage. The suit to foreclose the mortgage was precipitated because Ocean Park Company failed to meet the conditions of the mortgage in thát it neglected to pay taxes as they became due;- it- failed to pay sums due for labor and materials furnished; it failed to pay owners of the fee, the lessors, the sums due as rentals on the leased property and prior to the institution of this suit, Jacob and Yetta Solomon, lessors and also owners of the fee, instituted eviction proceedings in the Civil Court of Record of Dade County to secure possession of the leased premises.
. After filing the eviction proceeding to foreclose the lease, the lessors (the Solo-mons), being the fee simple owners, sold their interest to Royal Food Products, Inc., á corporation which was controlled by ap-pellees. .Royal Food Products, Inc., then, substituted itself as a party plaintiff in the action pending in the Civil Court of Record of Dade County to secure possession of the leased premises to cancel said 99-year lease for non-payment of rent and for other reasons. Royal Food Products, Inc., then had itself substituted in the instant cause as. party defendant in place of the original lessors, the fee simple owners.
At final hearing, the chancellor decreed that the leasehold interest was devoid of value since the lessee had been lawfully evicted by court order and being so, the claims of the mortgagee and the mechanic lienors against the leasehold interest were worthless. The court further decreed that Royal Food Products, Inc., held title to the leased premises, free of any encumbrance account of the statutory laborers' and mechanics' liens sought to be foreclosed. James M. Anderson and other defendants named as appellants have appealed from the final decree so entered.
frhe effect of the final decree in the Circuit Court is to terminate the 99-year lease, and permit Royal Food Products, Inc., a corporation controlled by the Sokoliks, to acquire the property without satisfying the mechanics' liens imposed on it for constructing the 30 room building. The point for determination is whether or not under the circumstances this should be permitted. ]
The chancellor answered this question in the affirmative on the theory that the lease did not require the lessee to construct a building or buildings on the leased property and that there was complete absence of any showing of privity of contract between any of the lienors and the fee owners, and further that the allegations of fraud by the lienors against the plaintiffs and Royal' Food Products, Inc., were not proven.
/it may be that no specific provision of the lease requires the construction of a building on the leased premises. It is a 38 page instrument, however, and one cannot read and construe it as a whole without reaching the conclusion that when it was executed, the parties contemplated the construction of improvements on the leased premises.
Article IV (A) of the 99-year lease requires payment of all taxes "on the land and all buildings, fixtures and improvements now or hereafter thereon." Article V, among other things, provides, "irrespective of the fact that the lessee is obligated by the terms of this lease to .cause• improvements to be installed in or constructed upon the premises, nevertheless, all persons with whom the lessee may deal, are put upon notice that the lessee has no power to subject the lessors' interest to any claim for mechanics' or materialmen's liens and all persons dealing with the lessee must look solely to the credit of the lessee and to the lessee's assets and not to the lessors or the lessors' assets."
Article VI inter alia provides that the "lessors shall have a first lien on the buildings required to be placed upon the premises ." Article VII (A) provides that the "lessee covenants and agrees that it will, at all times, and at its own expense, keep all buildings and improvements, situated on the demised premises insured This section fixes the amount of insurance that must be carried. Articles VIII and IX deal with payment of fire and windstorm insurance premiums. Article XI entitled "Lessee's Obligation to Build" uses the term "may" in reference to any building the lessee may propose to erect but requires that they be placed in accordance with approved plans and specifications, and that such improvements become a part of the realty whether by default or by ordinary lapse of time. Article XIV entitled "Default" has to do with failure to build or rebuild as provided and subjects the lease to forfeiture, including buildings and improvements thereon. Article XXII fixes time and conditions of lessee's option to purchase and Article XXIII is pertinent because it fixes the form of notice to be given not only before building is commenced but after building is completed as well and shows that the parties contemplated the construction of buildings or improvements on the leased premises, j
Despite the ruling of the chancellor that there was no specific provision of the lease requiring construction of improvements on the leased premises, we think the foregoing and other provisions of the lease show conclusively that both parties contemplated that buildings or other improve'ments would be constructed according to plans and specifications to be approved and that they were in fact placed on the premises. It is perfectly obvious that both parties knew that the improvements were the pith of the lease and except for them the lease would not have been executed. They were essential to the purpose of the lease and when the lessee contracted for them, he did so "in accordance with a contract" with the lessors whose interest in the property was then subject to the mechanics' and materialmen's liens.
jjThe governing statute is F.S. § 84.03(2), F.S.A., as follows:
"Except as provided in § 84.12 and 84.13, such liens shall extend to, and only to, the owner's right, title or interest existing at the time of the visible commencement of operations or thereafter acquired in the real property (not exceeding forty acres of land). When an improvement is made by a lessee, in accordance with a contract between such lessee and his lessor, liens shall extend also to the interest of such lessor. If any part of the real property subject to such liens be removed before the discharge thereof, such removal shall not affect the rights of lienors in respect to either the remaining real property or the part so removedj" j
In Robert L. Weed, Architect, Inc., v. Horning, 159 Fla. 847, 33 So.2d 648, this court considered various provisions of F.S. Chapter 84, F.S.A., relating to mechanics' liens and held inter alia that said act should be liberally construed to protect laborers and materialmen. This is true whether the obligation to build is express or implied. In either event, the lease attaches to the interest of the lessor fee simple owner. Any other interpretation would make it possible for lessors and lessees to evade the mechanics' lien law and defeat the claims of laborers and mechanics. It would be an open invitation to set at naught the mechanics' lien law and leave the laborer and mechanic without protection. Appellants were material-men and contractors who had furnished labor and material. They were not parties to the lease agreement consequently questions as to terms of the lease should be resolved in their favor. Cf. New York Life Ins. Co. v. Kincaid, 136 Fla. 120, 186 So. 675.
The words in the statute quoted above — "when an improvement is made by a lessee, in accordance with a contract between such lessee and his lessor, liens shall extend also to the interest of such lessor"— amply cover the contract we are confronted with in this case. Lehigh Structural Steel Co. v. Joseph Langner, Inc., Fla.1949, 43 So.2d 335, and Masterbilt Corporation v. S. A. Ryan Motors, Inc., 149 Fla. 644, 6 So.2d 818. There was never a case in which the doctrine of the statutory lien could be more appropriately invoked than here. In F.S. Chapter 84, F.S.A., the legislature placed every safeguard possible about the economic security of the laborer and the mechanic. It was designed to cut off every defense to payment and provided summary process to convert his labor or material into bread and raiment when the owner of the improved lands fails to do so. No court should invoke what may be termed the process of judicial alchemy to transmute the bread and raiment of the laborer and materialman into stones and by the same token transform it into gold for the lessors.
The provision in Article V, quoted in the forepart of this opinion, wherein it is attempted to strip the appellees of power to subject the lessors' interest to any claim for mechanics' lien is in effect an attempt to repeal or set aside F.S. Chapter 84, F.S.A., as applied to this contract and is without force or binding power. One cannot by contract read the clear intent of the legislature out of the books, neither can he, in the manner shown, contract the coat off the back of him who furnishes labor or material to improve his premises. Robert L. Weed Architect, Inc., v. Horn-ing, supra. In historical setting, the very purpose of equity and the statutory mechanics' lien was to prevent hardships like that pointed out in this case.
It follows chat the chancellor committed error in finding that the liens of appellants did not attach to the interest of appellees, so his judgment is reversed.
Reversed.
THOMAS and HOBSON, JJ., and FLOYD, Associate Justice, concur.
DREW, C. J., and THORNAL and SE-BRING, JJ., dissent.