Maryland Casualty Co. v. Hill

Citations

• 100 Wash. 289
• 170 P. 594

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations—Improvements—Contracts—Payment— Assignment—Rights op Surety. Where a contract for a municipal improvement provided for full payment upon completion of the work and did not authorize the city to retain any portion of the agreed price for the protection of laborers and materialmen, the contractor’s assignment to a bank for advances made, filed with the city prior to any notice that labor and materials had not been paid for, was a valid appropriation of the fund due to the contractor, prior and superior to any right of laborers or materialmen, secured by the contractor’s statutory bond; and the surety on the bond has no right to have the funds applied to claims filed with the city clerk where the city had no knowledge that the contractor in his application for the bond had assigned the fund to the surety.</p> <p>Injunction—Necessary Parties Dependant. Injunction does not lie against bankers, to whom city warrants had been delivered upon a contractor’s assignment of his claim, to prevent payment of the warrants, where it appears that, prior to commencement of the action, all the warrants had been sold to numerous purchasers' who were not made parties to the action.</p> <p>Appeal—Review—Harmless Error. Error cannot be predicated upon the allowance of interest upon claims for labor and material from a date 30 days subsequent to the completion of the work, where the lien laws allow interest from the date of filing the lien notice.</p> <p>Municipal Corporations—Actions on Contractor’s Bond—Attorney’s Fees. In suits by claimants against the surety on a eon-tractor’s bond securing a municipal contract, contested by the surety, attorney’s fees are allowable against the surety.</p> <p>Same—Action on Contractor’s Bonds—Condition Precedent— Notice. Under the statute making the timely filing of notice against the contractor’s bond a condition precedent to right of action thereon, the filing of a single notice for an unsegregated amount against two bonds s