Court Opinion

ID: 9550669
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:40:04.021843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:07.204359
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Moore
specially concurring:
It is most interesting to observe that the cases chiefly relied on by counsel for the United States are two decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States wherein it appears that the lower courts were in accord with the views expressed by the opinion of this court in the in*551stant case; however the United States Supreme Court reversed the lower court without written opinion.
I am at a loss to understand how justice could possibly be served by appropriating the labor and materials of workmen to the payment of the tax delinquency of another under the circumstances disclosed by the record in the case at bar. About the only rule we can think of that could support such a result is the one referred to by Mr. Justice Burke in People v. Kilpatrick, 79 Colo. 303, 245 Pac. 719, as follows:
“The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power
And they should keep who can.”
The opinion in that case also contained the following language which we think is applicable here:
“The construction given the act in question by the trial court [Supreme Court of the United States] is fraught with such momentous and disastrous results that we would need go no further than invoke against it the fundamental rule that absurd interpretations will not be given statutes when reasonable ones may be resorted to. A reasonable one here lies at hand.”
The federal statute provides that the lien claimed by the government “shall not be valid as against any mortgagee, pledgee, purchaser, or judgment creditor until notice thereof has been filed * * * ” as provided by state law. Justice clearly requires an interpretation that the mechanics’ lien holders in this case, who had no notice actual or constructive, are included within these exemptions. If this cannot be done the statute does violence to the constitution in that it deprives the workmen of the fruits of their labor without due process of law.