Court Opinion

ID: 9830449
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:13:22.025273+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:22.715765
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The conclusions of fact of the trial judge show that appellee was a contractor, and appellee insists in his answer to the motion for rehearing that his rights are fixed by the terms of article 5621, formerly 3294, rather than by those of article 5649. The first-named article provides for a lien for “any person, or firm, lumber dealer, or corporation, artisan, laborer, mechanic, or subcontractor, who may labor or furnish material, machinery, fixtures or tools to erect any house or improvement or to repair any building or improvement whatever.” That part of the article refers specifically to one class of improvements and gives a lien to the persons named. Then it. gives a lien to the same persons or corporations to secure labor, material, machinery, fixtures, or 'tools to erect or repair levees, etc. It also gives a lien to any one who may “furnish any material for the construction or repair of any railroad within this state under of by virtue of a contract with the owner, owners, or his or their agent, trustee, receiver, contractor or contractors.” There is no provision what*906ever made in that article for a lien to a contractor; the only thing for which a lien on railroads is provided being for material. We have been cited to no case in which it was held that there was any lien given against a railroad for services rendered by a contractor in constructing the roadbed or laying the track of a railroad: Mechanics and laborers who build machine shops, roundhouses, etc., for a railroa'd are governed by the first part of the article in question in regard to houses or improvements. Bank v. Railway, 95 Tex. 176, 66 S. W. 203.
The article as originally passed in 1889 gave no lien for material furnished a railroad, but in 1895 the act was amended by inserting that portion in regard to railroads. The object and intent of that amendment is clearly indicated by the déelaration in the emergency clause that there was “no law on the statute books extending the material-man’s lien to railroads.” Acts 1895, p. 194. There was no mention of contractors in the amendment, arid neither are they referred to in the amendment of 1913. Appellee alleged and the court found that he was a contractor and built a certain portion of the railroad under a contract.
An original contractor is one who, for a fixed price, agrees to perform certain work or furnish certain material. Van Horn v. Day, 148 S. W. 1129. Appellee at first claimed a lien under article 5621, but,'in a reply to a supplemental motion for rehearing, claims it also under article 5640.
In our former opinion we felt disposed to hold that appellee had a lien under article 5640, Revised Statutes, but a reconsideration of that article as well as the decisions thereunder convinces us that appellee has no lien under the terms of that statute. That law was passed in 1879 and amended in 1889, and has not. since been amended, and clearly has reference to none others than laborers, mechanics, and operatives to whom wages are due for their work or for their teams or tools. It has been held that the statute did not include teams furnished by a subcontractor, but only applies to men performing labor for railroads with or without teams. Krakauer v. Locke, 6 Tex. Civ. App. 446, 25 S. W. 700; Railway v. Foley, 30 Tex. Civ. App. 129, 69 S. W. 1030; Railway v. Read, 154 S. W. 1027. Appellee has no lien under that article of the statutes^ and we' conclude that he has no lien on the railroad property to secure his debt.
If, as we think, appellee ha'd no lien under the, statute, then it follows that the amendment filed by him was of effect, but bore on its face a fundamental defect, and conse-' quentíy could not have affected appellant in any manner. Appellant therefore has no cause of complaint as to not having notice of the filing of the amendment.. It does not affect it in any manner. ,■ ■
The motion for rehearing' is granted, our former judgment set aside, and the judgment of the lower court is reversed except as to dismissal of Wor'd, Lee, and Franklin, and judgment here rendered that appellee have and recover of the railway company the sum of $5,791.50, with interest at 6 per cent, from October 31, 1916; that he take nothing as to the receivers, West and Ponder, nothing as to the lien claimed by him, and pay all costs in this behalf expended in this court, as well as in the lower court, as to the receivers.