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29 Ill. 277

Gardner v. Hall

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided April 15, 1862

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1862-04-15

The plaintiff in error filed his petition in the court below, to enforce a mechanics’ lien, on a contract set out in the petition, and designated as “ Exhibit A.” The contract was entered into between the plaintiff and the defendant, Hall, on the 9 th of April, 1860, and by the terms thereof the work was to be completed by the 20th of July, 1860, the first payment to be made two months after the time fixed for the completion of the contract, to wit, on the 20th of September,…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1862-04-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently June 1932

18 state decisions

4018621870188018901900191019201930decided

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.

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Caton, C. J.

¶1The supplemental agreement indorsed on the back of the contract on which this suit is founded, did not extend the time of payment beyond the year. It was a conditional agreement to extend the time of payment. It was an agreement.purely executory. Hntil the mortgage should be executed as provided therein, all the obligations of the principal agreement, including the times of payment, remained in full force. The mortgage never was given. The contingency upon which the extension of the time depended, never happened. Had the mortgage been given as agreed, that would, of itself, have destroyed the mechanics’ lien, which may be done as effectually by the taldng of other security as by an extension of the time of payment beyond the year.

¶2Then why not say, with the same propriety, that an agreement was made to give other security, and therefore the lien was destroyed? The answer to the one objection is the same as to the other. An agreement was made to give a mortgage which would have destroyed the lien, but no mortgage was given, and hence the lien remained. So was an agreement made to extend the time of payment, which would destroy the lien, upon the execution of the mortgage. But the mortgage was never executed, and hence the time was never extended and the lien never waived thereby.

¶31 There were four defendants to the bill, three of whom were served. One defendant filed a demurrer. In the final order sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the bill, the clerk says, the defendants appeared; and it is now suggested that the appearance of the defendant not served was thereby entered, and as he is since dead, we cannot reverse the decree till his representatives are made parties. The simple answer to that is, that the appearance of the defendants, by their solicitors, will be referred to those only who had been served. This we have decided on several occasions.

¶4The decree is reversed, and the suit remanded.

¶5Decree reversed.

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