Opinion ID: 2172002
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Choate v. Adams et al.

Text: The single issue presented for our consideration in the plaintiff's appeal in the Adams case is whether the District Court has jurisdiction to enforce the liens created by 10 M.R.S.A. § 3251 et seq. (1964), as amended (Supp.1977), commonly known as mechanics' liens, pursuant to the remedy provided in section 3255. We answer in the negative. The District Court's general jurisdiction is defined by 4 M.R.S.A. § 152 (Supp. 1977), which in pertinent part provides that: The District Court shall possess the civil jurisdiction exercised by all trial justices and municipal courts in the State on September 16, 1961 . . . . [1] Prior to the date the District Court came into being, however, neither trial justices nor municipal courts had jurisdiction to entertain an action to enforce mechanics' liens. It is clear from an examination of the relevant statutes that then, as now, only the Superior Court had jurisdiction to entertain actions for their enforcement. On September 16, 1961, chapter 178, section 38 of the 1954 Revised Statutes, as amended by P.L.1959, ch. 317, § 391, provided, in language for present purposes identical to that of 10 M.R.S.A. § 3255 (Supp. 1977) (the statute under which plaintiff Choate proceeded), that: The [mechanics'] liens mentioned [above]. . . may be preserved and enforced by action against the debtor and owner of the property affected and all other parties interested therein, filed with the clerk of courts in the county where the house, building or appurtenances, wharf, pier or building thereon, on which a lien is claimed, is situated, within 90 days after the last of the labor or services are performed or labor, materials or services are so furnished, and not afterwards,. . . . The history of section 38 shows that the action therein authorized, and now contained in section 3255, could not be commenced in a municipal court or before a trial justice. Prior to the merger of law and equity in Maine in 1959, section 38 had read as follows: The [mechanics'] liens mentioned [above] may be preserved and enforced by bill in equity against the debtor and owner of the property affected and all other parties interested therein, filed with the clerk of courts in the county where the house, building or appurtenances. . . on which a lien is claimed, is situated . . . . (Emphasis added) R.S.1954, ch. 178, § 38. A bill in equity could only be commenced either in the Superior Court or in the Supreme Judicial Court, which at that time shared concurrent original jurisdiction in all cases and proceedings in equity. See R.S. 1954, ch. 107, §§ 2-37. Moreover, the phrase clerk of courts has the particular meaning of that clerk in a county who acts in that capacity both for the Superior and the Supreme Judicial Courts. See City of Belfast v. City of Bath, 137 Me. 91, 94, 15 A.2d 249, 250 (1940). That the legislature intended clerk of courts to have that meaning in section 38 was confirmed by the fact that it was a bill in equity that section 38 prescribed as the means for enforcing a mechanics' lien. [2] Although the word action was later substituted for bill in equity in section 38 by P.L.1959, ch. 317, § 391, no substantive change in the statute was thereby intended. See, generally, Field & McKusick, Maine Civil Practice § 2.3 (1st ed. 1959). The purpose of the 1959 amendment was merely to conform [section 38] to the terminology of the rules of civil procedure, which provided for a single civil action upon the merger of law and equity in 1959. Ibid. The reference thereafter in section 38, and later in section 3255, to an action filed with the clerk of courts cannot be read as granting to trial justices and municipal courts, or after 1961 the District Court, jurisdiction to entertain the proceeding authorized by section 38. [3] Plaintiff next contends that section 85 of chapter 178, as it read prior to September 16, 1961, independently gave municipal courts or trial justices jurisdiction to enforce mechanics' liens pursuant to section 38. That argument does not, however, withstand examination. Section 85 was located under a separate subheading of chapter 178 relating to liens on personal property or choses in action in the lienors' possession, and it is doubtful the extent to which it was ever intended to apply to other types of liens in chapter 178. In any event, even if section 85 were viewed as having had some more general applicability, the specific remedies provided for enforcing mechanics' liens, contained in a separate and distinct grouping, controlled over the general remedies that were provided in sections 72-85 of chapter 178. Cf. McGillicuddy v. Edwards, 96 Me. 347, 52 A. 785 (1902). The mechanic's lienor has a clear remedy in the Superior Court. We can find no warrant in the statutes delimiting the District Court's jurisdiction for the lienor to reject the wide-open door to the Superior Court, in the hope of finding some crack in the jurisdictional door of the District Court.