Minnesota Supreme Court, 1887

Pratt v. Duncan

Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided May 9, 1887 · Dickinson

36 Minn. 545; 32 N.W. 709; 1887 Minn. LEXIS 274 (Minnesota Reports)

Counsel

E. A. Campbell and J. E. Waters, for appellant., Merrick, D.avenport <Jc Thian, for respondents.

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Citation treatment has not been reviewed for this case. The notes below come from the citation graph and the Minnesota Revisor's amendment records, not from a review of how later courts treated this decision.

(as of 9/30/2026)

Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 1896, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

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Cases that cite this one

4 later published cases cite this decision.

Clo-Car Trucking Co. v. Clifflure Estates of South Carolina, Inc. (S.C. Ct. App. 1984)
Lewis Energy Corp. v. Action Well Service, Inc. (United States Bankruptcy Court, D. Colorado 1983)
Nanz v. Park Co. (Tenn. 1899)
Colvin v. Weimer (Minn. 1896)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

Dickinson, J.

The defendant’s claim of a lien cannot be sustained. The right of lien is asserted for earth furnished and labor done in banking up the basement and foundation walls of buildings, upon the premises sought to be charged, and in filling and grading the grounds for the purpose of sodding. This is not within the stat-. ute, which authorizes a lien for labor performed or material furnished for the “erection, alteration, or repair of any house, mill, manufactory, or other building or appurtenances.” Gen. St. 1878, i. -90, § 2. Section 6 of this chapter, after prescribing the procedure by which a lien may be perfected, declares that the same shall operate as'a lien “upon the several descriptions of structwres and buildings, and the lots of ground on which they stand, in the second section of .this chapter named.” The statute is not to be construed as authorizing a- lien for improvements or .operations upon the soil merely, which do not enter into or contribute to the erection, alteration, or repair of any building or structure upon the land, and which *546are wholly unconnected with the erection of or work upon such artificial structures. Smith v. Kennedy, 89 Ill. 485. The labor and material for which a lien is here claimed bore no disclosed relation to the construction, alteration, or repair of any structure upon the land, and the right to a lien was properly denied.

Judgment affirmed.

Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.