Court Opinion

ID: 9553533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:31:19.356456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:31.015034
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring in the result),
I concur in the result but not in some portions of the main opinion that seem to be obiter that might be construed erroneously in its application to possible future cases.
It is said therein that “It will be noted that the statute does not give the lien for improvements to the land.” True. But the statute says upon the land. Backus v. Hooten says nothing to the contrary, but did use some gratuitous and unnecessary language with respect to plowing, fertilizer and seeds, all of which had little or nothing to do with leveling of the land, — the only question in that case.
I think the lien and bond statutes quoted were an outgrowth of the common law concept respecting personalty as it relates to realty. This concept contemplated the “af-fixation” of something to the realty, which something, if uprooted or jerked out, seriously would impair the land itself and possibly the marketability of the fee.
Leveling off sagebrush affixes nothing to the realty. Manure adds only a temporary offensive odor, and many times seeds add only to the digestion of our feathered friends, — all of which need no compendium here, — where only shrubbery incident to the erection of a home is concerned, which *428home, like the shrubbery, is affixed to the realty, as usually is the case with a furnace or Dutch oven. I think the common law analogy of affixation to the realty should be the test. The instant case meets that test, but does not bottom its result on that ground. If Hooten had been confined to its own facts, I wouldn’t give a hoot, but it has, besides sagebrush, a few little Virginia creepers in its verbage or verbiage that might obscure the lien law landscape.
The main opinion concludes that “where landscaping is done during the construction of a home and as an integral part of the construction for the purpose of contributing toward the enjoyment to be had from living in that home,” a lien attaches.
I don’t think the enjoyment of the home has anything to do with the problem, since there is at least anticipatory enjoyment in spreading fertilizer on a plowed plot planted with lawnseed. And I don’t think lien-ability depends on whether the labor and materials were furnished during the construction of the home.
I think the realistic test is whether they were furnished' for the purpose of affixing something that would become a part of the realty in the common law concept, whether accomplished during the construction of the home or later, irrespective of the question of enjoyment and regardless of distance from the home, if it can be demonstrated that an affixation to the realty was contemplated and accomplished. (Emphasis, added.)