Court Opinion

ID: 9828571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:30:07.858024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:50.484138
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
-The defendant in error Bourgeois is insistent that the particular ruling below mentioned is opposed to the holding in the cases of Railway Co. v. Humphreys, 1 (W. & W.) Civil Cases, § 569; Railway Co. v. Foley, 30 Tex. Civ. App. 129, 69 S. W. 1031; Milligan v. Railway Co., 46 S. W. 918. The ruling is, “For merely overseeing the work of his hired men, if he did, out of whose work he was realizing a profit under a contract with his-contractors, and himself not actually performing labor of some kind in some way, he [Bourgeois] would not be entitled to a lien,” because “he would be, under such circumstances, and to that extent at least, classed simply as a subcontractor and not a laborer.” This was speaking strictly to the proof here and the claim for labor done by Bourgeois under his contract with Read Bros. & Montgomery to grade, clear, and grub a part of the railway. In the case of Humphreys, supra, Bussey was a subcontractor, and Allen was engaged by him as the foreman or superintendent of a company of laborers in the construction of a railway. He performed such labor, and the proof was specific that he performed such service directly “for 37 days for which he charged $3 per day, making $111.” He was classed as a laborer, and was allowed a lien as such, because he was employed and worked distinctively as a foreman of the gang of laborers, and along with them. Pat and R. O. Foley, in the case supra, owned a construction outfit of teams and tools and undertook under a contract with Smith to clear, grub, and grade a certain portion of the line of railway. Becoming involved in debt, they let the teams to Smith, to use in the work in payment of the debt owing the contractor, who continued to use them after the debt was paid. They were denied a lien for the teams, but for the distinctive work of Pat Foley for two days’ work as foreman, as such, of the subcontractor, Smith, he was allowed a lien. It was not merely for overseeing the work performed by Foley & Foley, as subcontractors, in the first instance, under Smith, or because they were owners of the teams hired to Smith, that Pat Foley was allowed a laborer’s lien. It was because he worked distinctively as foreman for two days for Smith, the hirer of the teams. In the case of Milligan, supra, an auditor in the employ of a construction *114company that constructed a railway was held not included in the terms of the statute. The eases are clearly distinguishable from the instant one.
The motion is overruled.