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41 Mo. App. 611

Smith v. Haley

Missouri Court of Appeals

Decided May 29, 1890

Missouri Court of Appeals · decided 1890-05-29

<p>1. Practice, Trial: compulsory reference : long account. If in an action arising under a contract for the erection of a building and for the enforcement of a mechanics’ lien for the amount claimed, the account sued upon contains fifteen items of charges and credits, and the answer presents five counter-claims arising out of the performance of the contract, and involving together thirteen items of counter-charge, so that the pleadings as a whole • present twenty-eight items, which are the subject of controversy, the court is warranted in ordering without the consent of the parties a reference of the cause on the ground that the examination of a long account is necessary.</p> <p>2. -: EXCEPTIONS TO RULINGS OF A REFEREE ON THE ADMISSION OR exclusion of evidence. In order that a party to a cause which has been tried before a referee may demand a review of rulings of the referee on the admission or exclusion of evidence he must, in the exceptions filed by him under the statute on the filing of the-referee’s report, specifically point out the rulings of which he complains. A general exception by defendants that “the referee admitted illegal and improper evidence for the plaintiff, and excluded legal and proper evidence for the defendants,” is insufficient.</p> <p>3. Pleading: waiver. Under an allegation of performance, a waiver may be shown’, and where the contract, which is the foundation of the action, requires performance to be made in a particular way, it may be shown that the defendant accepted performance in a different way.</p> <p> On motion for rehearing. </p> <p>4. Mechanics’ Liens: filing of account. An account filed as the basis of a mechanic’s lien is insufficient to sustain the lien, ,if it consists of one item for the entire cost of the erection of a building ; and this is so, though the building was erected under a written contract fixing its cost at the amount named in the account, and though the lien be filed by the original contractor for the erection of the building.</p>

Relies on Rude v. Mitchell

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed and remanded · Decided 1890-05-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently January 1963

9 state decisions

4018901900191019201930194019501960decided

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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¶1OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.

Thompson, J.

¶2We see no reason for granting the rehearing which is asked for in this cause; but the argument which has been presented to us in support of the motion calls our attention to the recent decision of the supreme court in Rude v. Mitchell, 97 Mo. 365. That case holds that, where the account filed as the-basis of a mechanic’s lien, in a case between the original contractor and the owner, states the whole contract price of the building in one item, it is not the “just and true account” required by the statute, but is worthless as the basis of a lien, and that, where the-builder files such an account, he acquires no lien. This is contrary to what this court has hitherto supposed to be the law on this subject. We have hitherto proceeded upon the idea that,.where the original parties to the *621contract have agreed on a round sum for the price of the building, all that the builder can do in drawing his account is to state such round sum as the first item; though our understanding has been that the rule is different in the case of the lien of a sub-contractor. We have supposed that an attempt on the part of the builder to divide up this round sum arbitrarily, so as to show how much Tie regards as chargeable to the masonry, how much to the carpenter work, how much to the plastering, and the like, would be nugatory, because neither justified nor authorized by the contract, which has made no such division. But now that the supreme court has decided that this must be done, even as between the original parties to the building contract, it is our duty to conform our judgment to their view of the law. . There can be no possible distinction in this respect between the lien account in Rude v. Mitchell, 97 Mo. 365, and that in the case at bar. Here the first' item of the account is, “To building, complete, one two-story house with mock-mansard roof, situated at number 2819, Sheridan avenue, for contract price, thirty-nine hundred and ninety dollars.” As this defect rendered the entire lien void, the question is sufficiently saved for review by the exception to the referee’s report (renewed in the motion for new trial), that the finding.is against the evidence.

¶3Our conclusion is that the judgment of the circuit court must be reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to enter judgment for the sum recommended by the referee, and to enter judgment for the defendants in respect of the claim for a mechanic’s lien. It is so ordered.

All the judges concur.
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