Stringfellow v. Coons

Citations

• 57 Fla. 158

Syllabus

<p>i. In a suit by sub-contractors to enforce a mechanic’s lien the court properly refused the following instruction to the jury: “The court charges you that if you find from the evidence or the admissions in the plaintiff’s declaration that the defendant Stringfellow promptly upon receipt of notice of plaintiffs of their intention to hold a lien upon his house, he notified them in writing in reply thereto that they were not to hold his property for any service or material performed for tile contractors, and that he would in no wise be responsible to plaintiffs, but that they must look to the contractors and that thereafter his dealings with plaintiffs did not alter his dealings as expressed in this reply, then you cannot find for the plaintiffs as there was no privity between them and the defendant Stringfellow.”</p> <p>2. In a suit by sub-contracts to enforce a mechanic lien the extent of the liability of the owner of the property and of the lien in favor of the plaintiffs is in no way lmited or affected by the state of the accounts between the owner and the contractors at the time of the abandonment of the contract by the contractors, but depends upon the amount due by the owner to the contractors at the time of the service of the cautionary notice upon the owner and the amount due the sub-contractors for labor performed and materials furnished, but not to a greater extent than the amount of the original contract. The owner may not defeat the right of sub-contractors to recover by merely showing that he has settled in full with the contractors.</p> <p>3. Sub-contractors do not waive or forfeit their right to a mechanic’s lien by taking the promissory note of the contractors for what was due them, unless the parties agreed that the note should have the effect of extinguishing the lien or such was their intention.</p> <p>4. Under the provisions of section 2213 of the General Statutes, sub-contractors may resort to the remedy prescribed by sub-section 3 of section 2