Court Opinion

ID: 9582332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:25:25.278476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:40.254637
License: Public Domain

WADE, Justice
(dissenting).
I agree that defendant’s deceased husband was not acting as her agent in procuring plaintiff to do this job because he was the equitable owner acting on his own behalf and she held the bare legal title. But, if she had been the owner and had allowed him to manage the property and contract for labor and materials, as he did, I am not prepared to hold that the evidence is not sufficient to establish that he was acting as her agent.
Under her evidence, which she disclosed to plaintiff for the first time at the trial, he was the equitable owner of the property and she merely held the legal title. This evi*467dence was produced by her to defeat plaintiff’s claim that he was her agent. I wonder if her testimony would have been the same had plaintiff, in its claim of lien and complaint, instead of claiming that he was her agent claimed that he was the equitable owner of the property. Under this decision we have opened up an opportunity for defendant to wait until plaintiff discloses its theory and then regardless of which theory plaintiff adopts, to formulate its evidence to defeat plaintiff’s claim by proving the opposite theory to be the correct one. I fear that grave injustice and unnecessary complications will be the result.
Here the plaintiff, lien claimant, relying on the record title, both in the complaint and the claim of lien designated the defendant as the owner of the property, and stated that plaintiff was engaged to do the job by defendant’s husband. Apparently, plaintiff had no information which indicated that the husband was the equitable owner and that defendant was the holder of the bare record title until defendant’s evidence was produced on the trial. Such being the case, under the prevailing opinion, plaintiff is now out of court because there was no way to discover what defendant’s evidence would be until it was too late. Under such circumstances plaintiff should be allowed to amend the pleadings to conform to the proof and to bring in as parties defendant the successor in interest of defendant’s deceased husband and try the case on the theory that the deceased husband was the equitable owner acting for himself and not as agent for the defendant. Otherwise this issue probably can never be litigated because the time within which to commence a suit to foreclose this lien will have expired before another suit can be commenced.
The claim of lien as well as the pleadings stated that defendant was the owner of the property and that plaintiff was engaged to do the job by her deceased husband. This was sufficient to establish a lien against the interests of both defendant and her deceased husband even though he was the equitable owner and she merely held the record *468title to the property. Section 52-1-7, U. C. A. 1943, which sets out the necessary elements of a claim of lien, in regard to a statement of the owner, requires only a statement of
“the name of the owner, if known, and also the name of the person by whom he was employed or to whom he furnished the material.”
There is no evidence that plaintiff knew that the husband was the equitable owner so the statutory requirements are fully complied with by this statement and are sufficient to create a lien on both the interest of defendant and her deceased husband. The deceased husband placed the record title in his wife’s name and thereby held out to the public that she was the owner, and plaintiff relying on that holding out stated in their claim of lien that she was the owner and that plaintiff was engaged to do the job by him. In view of these facts, the decedent and his successors are estopped from now claiming that his interest in the property is not covered by the claim of lien on the ground that such claim did not designate him as the owner of the property. This was a substantial compliance with the lien statute. Any one reading the claim of lien would be notified that if the decedent had any interest in the property the lien claimant was claiming a lien against that interest as well as the interest of the defendant. To hold that either the interest of the defendant or her deceased husband was not covered by this claim of lien would be to totally disregard the requirements of Section 88-2-2, U. C. A. 1943, which provides:
“The rule of the common law that statutes in derogation thereof are to be strictly construed has no application to the statutes of this state. The statutes establish the laws of this respecting the subjects to which they relate, and their provisions and all proceedings under them are to be liberally construed with a view to effect the objects of the statutes and to promote justice. * * *”
A liberal construction of this statute with a view to effect its objects and to promote justice, requires that plaintiff be given the opportunity of proving his lien as against *469the interests, as they now appear, of defendant, as well as the interest of her deceased husband.
In his concurring opinion Mr. Justice WOLFE seems to agree that the herein suggested procedure would meet the ends of justice. But he suggests that since plaintiff’s counsel failed to recognize that under the facts proved he could not succeed on the theory that plaintiff was the owner of the property, and therefore failed to ask leave to amend his pleadings to conform to the proof and to bring in, if necessary, other parties and try the case on the theory that plaintiff’s deceased husband was the owner, this court is now powerless to do what the ends of justice require. The injunction of section 88-2-2, U. C. A. 1943, that statutes be liberally construed to effect their objects and promote justice is just as much applicable to cases after judgment as before.
I did not invoke the new Utah Rules of Civil Procedure because the case was argued and most of the work done on this opinion before January 1, 1950, when those rules went into effect. I am however of the opinion that Rule 1 of such rules providing that
“they shall be liberally construed to secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every action,”
Rule 15 dealing with amendments to the pleading, and Rule 21, quoted by Mr. Justice WOLFE are ample to justify the procedure herein suggested. I have great difficulty to understand how Mr. Justice WOLFE construes the words of Rule 21 to apply only to cases where this court finds that the trial court erred in its disposition of the case. The language of this rule contains no such limitations. It authorizes the addition or dropping of parties
“by order of the Court * * *. of its own motion at any stage of the action and on such terms as are just.” (Emphasis mine.)
*470To hold that the procedure herein suggested is contrary to those provisions seems to fly in the face of the clear and unambiguous language of that Rule.
Nor is the suggestion that to follow the herein proposed procedure will require this court to finally pass on a question which has not been carefully considered and argued by counsel applicable to this case. For if this matter were remanded with directions to allow amendments and the bringing in of new parties if necessary, every party would have ample time to prepare his case and argue it both to the court below and to this court on appeal. That such procedure is novel and revolutionary does not seem to be very impressive when considered and compared with Mr. Justice WOLFE’S suggestion that the statute of limitations may not be a bar to a future action by the plaintiff under the theory that the husband was the real owner of the property, in view of the facts and circumstances of this case. I contend that such procedure will be a credit to any system of jurisprudence both on account of the overall ultimate effect, as well as the immediate desirable results. For a system which will require a determination of the cases on their merits rather than to bar one party from his just rights because he was misled by the other party to proceed on an untenable theory under a mistake of the facts, is a bad system and will defeat the very purpose of courts both in this case and the overall results.
It is a sad state of affairs if this court is so bound by formalities that in a case like this, the obvious objects of the statute must be thwarted and justice defeated merely because plaintiff in making its claim of lien and drawing its complaint was misled by defendant and her deceased husband into believing that defendant was the owner and he was her agent. I therefore dissent.
McDONOUGH, J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice WADE.