Court Opinion

ID: 9831410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:05:06.189577+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:34.595392
License: Public Domain

HALL, Justice.
On March 30, 1932, A. W. Phillips filed suit in the district court of Rusk county against appellant and others to cancel a pretended lien attempted to be fixed on a five-acre leasehold owned by him, situated in Rusk county, and to remove cloud from title cast thereby. Appellants answered by general denial and cross-action in which they sought foreclosure of their materialman’s and mechanic’s liens on the leasehold estate of Phillips. The Trico Oil Company, one of the appellees herein, intervened in said cause and alleged that it was the owner of the said 'leasehold estate by virtue of a sale to it by Phillips, that it bought without notice, either actual or constructive, of the claims of appellants for labor performed or material furnished, and that it paid a valuable consideration for same. It denied that appellants had a valid lien against said property or that they had complied with the terms of the drilling contract. It prayed for cancellation of said lien and for removal of cloud from its title. The Ellis Drilling Company, one of the appellants here, also intervened alleging that it furnished the drilling rig with which the well was drilled, and as compensation for the rental for said rig there had been assigned to it the sum of $1,000 out of the contract price to be paid for the drilling of said well. They prayed for judgment for $1,000 against Phillips and intervener Trico Oil Company and for foreclosure of the lien on the leasehold.
•It a’ppears from the record that on May 22, 1931, A. W. Phillips entered into a contract with one W. G. Boone to drill a well for oil or gas on the five-acre leasehold in controversy. Drilling was to begin on or before June 12, 1931. Consideration for the drilling of said will was $2.50 per foot, payable in stated amounts at specified depths. On June 5, 1931, Boone, for a consideration of $500 to be paid, assigned, with the written consent of Phillips, this drilling contract to T & T Drilling Company, and the date for the beginning of said well was extended to June 16, 1931, and later to June 21, 1931. The T & T Drilling Company assigned said drilling contract to Albert Bag-gett for a stated consideration, and Baggett was the first to begin the drilling under said contract. He drilled the well to a depth of about 2,000 feet, after which he assigned said contract to Lewis and Swanson who continued the drilling of said well to a, depth of approximately 3,100 feet. Lewis and Swanson were unable, for some reason, to complete the well to the contract depth, and Phillips, the owner of the leasehold, finished the drilling of the same.
On October 10, 1931, after the well had been completed by Phillips, Baggett, Lewis, and Swanson filed with the county clerk a duplicate of said original contract together with their affidavit in which they attempted to fix a materialman’s and mechanic’s lien on the five-acre leasehold upon which the well was drilled. They delivered this duplicate contract and the affidavit to the county clerk of Rusk county, Tex., who filed same and recorded it in the deed records of Rusk county, Tex.
A trial was had to the court without a jury, which resulted in a personal judgment against Phillips for certain amounts of money found by the court to be due the appellants. The court refused to foreclose the alleged lien and held the same to be void. The court also refused personal judgment against either W. V. Lester, president of Trico Oil Company, or the Trico Oil Company. From this judgment the appellants present their appeal to this court.
Appellants assign as error the action of the trial court in holding that the attempted lien sought to be fixed by appellants against this leasehold estate was void, and we think that this is the controlling question in this case. As said before, the contract and affidavit was recorded in the deed records of Rusk county, Tex., and not in the mechanic’s lien records kept by him for that purpose. Article 5453, R.S., as amended by Acts 1929, 41st Leg., c. 478, § 1 (Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 5453), among other things, provides: “Every original contractor, within four months, and every journeyman, day laborer, or other person, within three months after the indebtedness accrues, shall file his contract in the office of the county clerk of the county where the property- is situated to be recorded in a book kept by the county clerk- for that purpose.”
Article 6601, R.S.1925, is as follows: “All deeds of trust, mortgages or judgments which are required to be recorded in order to create a judgment lien, or other instruments of writing intended to create a lien, shall be recorded in a book or books sepa*312rate from those in which deeds or other conveyances are recorded.”
The cases that are nearest in point on this question are Quinn v. Logan, 67 Tex. 600, 4 S.W. 247, and Lyon v. Logan, 68 Tex. 521, 5 S.W. 72, 74, 2 Am.St.Rep. 511, both by Supreme Court. In the case of Lyon v. Logan, it is said: “The statute requires the contract or bill of particulars, with its accompanying statement, to be filed and ‘recorded in a book to be kept by the county clerk for that purpose.’ The petition alleges that this was done; and the fact that the book in which the account and accompanying statement were recorded may have been used to record bills of sale, would not affect the validity of the record, if in fact the book was the one kept for the purpose of recording all mechanics’ liens. Quinn v. Logan [67 Tex. 600], 4 S.W. 247. The statute does not provide that the book shall be kept exclusively for the purpose of recording such liens.”
In the case of Quinn v. Logan, supra, it is said: “They must be recorded in a book to be kept by the clerk for that purpose; but that the record of other liens may not be kept in the same book is not declared, nor is it to be deduced from any of our statutes bearing upon the question. On the contrary, the county clerk is required to record deeds of trusts, mortgages, judgments recorded for the purpose of creating a lien, or other instruments of writing intended to create a lien in a book or books separate from those in which deeds or other conveyances are recorded. Rev.St., art. 4304. This statute contemplates that liens shall be recorded separately from absolute conveyances, but not from each other. The hook in which they are registered is kept for the purpose of recording every instrument intended to create a lien; and the contract of a mechanic, or his bill of particulars, are intended, when recorded, to have that effect. There may be no objection to registering mechanics’ liens in a book by themselves; but, if the clerk habitually records them in the same book with mortgages, he keeps that book for the purpose of recording such liens, and complies literally with the statute.” (Italics ours.)
 It has recently been held by this court in the case of Shirey v. Trust Co. of Texas et al., 69 S.W.(2d) 835, that the failure of the clerk to properly index a judgment filed with the county clerk attempting to fix a lien renders the same of no effect. In this case a writ of error was refused. From the authorities above cited, we are of the opinion that the trial court was correct in holding that the attempted lien in this instance was void and of no effect. The statute requires certain things to be done by a party in order to fix a mechanic’s or materialman’s lien, which, in our judgment, must be complied with before said lien attaches. Certainly it cannot be said that a contract filed by a mechanic or materialman not within the time required by the statute would fix a lien, and it seems to us, by the same reasoning, a failure to have the contract and affidavit “recorded in a book or books separate from those in which deeds or other conveyances are recorded” would also result in a failure of the lien to attach. The trial court found as a fact that the county clerk of Rusk county, Tex,, kept a book or books separate from the deed records, in which he recorded material-man’s and mechanic’s liens. Therefore it is our holding that, in order to fix a statutory materialman’s or mechanic’s lien under the circumstances in this case, every provision of the statute relative thereto must be complied with. This holding makes it unnecessary for us to discuss the other features of this case.
The judgment of the lower court therefore is in all things affirmed.