Ainsworth v. Atkinson

Decided June 13, 1860

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1860-06-13

<p>A suit to enforce a lien upon real estate, is in the nature of a suit to foreclose a mortgage, and is not embraced by § 10, 2 R. S. p. 451, conferring civil jurisdiction upon justices of the peace.</p> <p>In a suit to enforce a mechanic's lien, an answer alleging that the property is now owned by a third person, but not denying the ownership of the defendant at the time the lien attached, is bad.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1860-06-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently October 1906

10 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Perkins, J.

¶1Suit to enforce a mechanic’s lien upon real estate. The amount for which a lien was claimed was less than fifty dollars. It was claimed that, therefore, the *539Common Pleas had not jurisdiction; that the suit should have been brought before a justice of the peace.

J. Perry, for the appellant.W. A. Bielde, for the appellees.

¶2But a suit to enforce a lien upon real estate is in the nature of a suit to foreclose a mortgage, a proceeding in chancery under the former practice, and is not embraced by the section of the code (2 R. S. p. 451, § 10,) conferring civil jurisdiction upon justices. Perk. Pr., p. 639.

¶3The defendant answered, that the property on which the lien was sought to be enforced was then owned by a third person, but did not deny the ownership of the defendant at the time the lien attached.

¶4This answer was no defense.

Per Curiam.

¶5The judgment is affirmed with 10 per cent, damages and costs.