Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

19 Ill. 615

Parmelee v. Hambleton

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided April 15, 1858

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1858-04-15

This suit was commenced by filing a petition to the April term, A. D. 1856, of the Cook county Circuit Court, for the enforcement of a mechanics’ lien, under the statute. At the June special term of the Circuit Court, the said cause was transferred to the Cook county Court of Common Pleas. And the petition, answer and other papers in the case duly filed in said Court of Common Pleas.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1858-04-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently March 1897

6 state decisions

3018581860187018801890decided

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 →

Catón, O. J.

¶1This was a proceeding to enforce a mechanics’ lien upon certain premises in Chicago, for the erection of a building upon the premises and a vault under the sidewalk, appurtenant to the building; both the building and appurtenance being provided for in one and the same contract, no distinct price being stipulated for either; and the important question is, whether the suit can be maintained where the appurtenance is not upon the premises sought to be subjected to the lien. This depends entirely upon the construction to be given to the statute authorizing this proceeding. That statute provides as follows : “ Any person, who shall, by contract with the owner of any piece of land or town lot, furnish labor or materials for erecting or repairing any building or the appurtenances of any building-on such land or lot, shall have a lien upon the whole tract of land or town lot, in the manner herein provided, for the amount due to him for such labor or material.” We have sought in vain so to construe this statute as to give the lien, where the appurtenance was in the street, and not upon the lot. We are constantly met with the unmistakeable language of the act, “ any building or the appurtenances of any building on such land or lot.” This certainly means that both the building and appurtenance shall be upon the lot. We cannot fairly construe it so as to give a lien upon a lot for improvements made off of it, although appurtenant to a building upon the lot. The plain expressions of the act, are all the arguments which can be offered on the subject. The law simply says so, and by it we are bound.

¶2The decree must be reversed, and the suit remanded.

¶3Decree reversed.

/19/ill/615 · .json · Public domain