Court Opinion

ID: 9845916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:31:00.105489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:26.333329
License: Public Domain

HALLEY, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent to the majority opinion in this case because I think that the case of Industrial Tile Company v. Home Federal Savings and Loan Association of Tulsa et al., Okl., 331 P.2d 918, is sound. It was adopted on June 10, 1958, and has been the law since and should not be overturned. It should control in this case.
To my way of thinking all that is involved here is the proper construction of 42 O.S.1961, § 141, and its application to the facts. It is not successfully denied that construction had started on the house involved here before the mortgage went of record. Section 141 has this language:
“ * * * Such liens shall be preferred to all other liens or encumbrances which may attach to or upon such land, buildings or improvements or either of them subsequent to the commencement of such building. * * ”
This provision clearly favors those who-perform labor or furnish material. It does not require a laborer to go check the records at the County Clerk’s office to see whether a mortgage has gone of record since the building was started. The Legislature undoubtedly realized that it was better for the lending agencies to determine what improvements were upon the property when their mortgages are put of record. It is far better that they have this responsibility than a laborer. When a mortgage goes on record after a building is started the lending agency can protect itself by refusing to malee a loan or by seeing that all bills are paid on the building *497as they accrued. Lending agencies will simply have to know that work has not started on a house when their mortgage is put of record. This rule has been lived with for almost seven years. I think it is a mistake to change it when to do so would be against the plain provisions of Section 141, 42 O.S.1961.
I dissent.