Court Opinion

ID: 9682027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:03:37.536937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:37.053197
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Hart,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the holding that Article 5473 does not authorize the respondent, Crutcher, Rolfs, Cummings, Inc., and Kane Trucking Company, to fix liens to secure the payment to them of the sums owing for the performance of their subcontracts with Ladewig Engineering Company. In my opinion, the services required of Ladewig Engineering Company in its contract with Humble Pipe Line Company constitute the performance of labor and the furnishing and hauling of materials, machinery and supplies in “operating” and “maintaining” the pipe line, as those terms are used in the statute.
It should not be controlling that the pipe was not used again in the same places from which it was removed, or even in the same counties, or that the respondents did not themselves install the pipe in its new location. The particular part of the pipe line from which the pipe was taken should not be considered as isolated from the rest of the system, nor should what the respondents did be considered apart from its relation to the whole process of the conduct of the pipe line. It seems to me that it is sufficient to bring the respondents under the statute that they performed services and furnished materials for a part of the continuing operation and maintenance of the pipe line, considered as a whole. In other words, taking pipe out of the ground, reconditioning it, and putting it back in another place seem to me to be parts of the operation and maintenance of a pipe line, and since what respondents did constitutes a part of that process, they should have the benefit of the statute.
Opinion delivered May 3, 1950.
Rehearing overruled May 31, 1950.