Titusville Iron Works v. Keystone Oil Co.

Citations

• 130 Pa. 211
• 18 A. 739
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 1176

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>(a) The Supreme Court reversed a decision refusing judgment upon a scire facias sur mechanics’ lien, for want of a sufficient affidavit of defence, with instructions to enter judgment for the plaintiff, unless other legal or equitable cause for refusing judgment be shown.</p> <p>1. Upon the return of the record to the court below, the plaintiff was entitled to have his rule for judgment made absolute, unless by supplemental affidavit some legal or equitable reason for denying the motion then pending was brought to the attention of the court.</p> <p>2. By such an order of the Supreme Court the status of'the case is fixed, and the court below has no power to go back to an earlier stage of the case and determine, on motion of defendant, that the claim filed was insufficient and strike it from the record, a question not raised by the affidavit of defence.</p> <p>3. A mechanics’ lien' enumerating several structures, consisting of stills, tanks, boilers, agitators, drums, etc., stating their dimensions, material, and uses, and averring that together they constitute an oil refinery, upon a parcel of ground particularly described, is sufficient in form: Short v. Ames, 121 Pa. 530.</p> <p>4. Such a lien filed against an oil refinery and in sufficient form, is good under the act of June 16, 1836, P. L, 695, although the several structures constituting the refinery consist of appliances put up in the open air, and not inclosed or covered by any roof or shed.</p> <p>5. Whether the act of June 5, 1874, P. L. 300, repealing certain local lien laws so far as relating to certain counties, except as to claims for actual labor bymechanies and laboring men, contravenes the provisions of §§ 3, 6,'7 or 8, article III. of the constitution, not decided.</p>