Wirsing v. Pennsylvania Hotel & Sanitarium Co.
Wirsing v. Pennsylvania Hotel & Sanitarium Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
On June 12, 1906, Harry M. Wirsing, the appellee, filed a mechanic’s lien against a building and two lots of ground, naming the Pennsylvania Hotel & Sanitarium Company as owner or reputed owner. He obtained a judgment on this lien on June 3, 1908, and on March 3, 1909, the South Side Trust Company, trustee in bankruptcy of the Pulaski Springs Hotel Company, successor in title to the Pennsylvania Hotel & Sanitarium Company, presented a petition to the court below, praying for an order limiting and defining the curtilage bound by the appellee’s mechanic’s lien and the judgment thereon. The two lots of ground against which the lien was filed as curtilage to the building are separated by a railroad
The answer to the petition, to which no replication was filed, avers that at the time the appellee entered into the contract with the Pennsylvania Hotel & Sanitarium Company on which his claim is founded it was the owner of the two lots described in the lien, on one of which there is located a spring or well of water; that on this lot there were buildings, a boiler, etc., and in connection therewith the said company proposed to erect and construct a large sanitarium or hotel; that the said sanitarium or hotel was to be used in connection with the said spring or well of water; that it was the purpose and design of the company to heat and light the hotel from a heating and power system on the lot on which the spring was located and to supply the hotel or sanitarium with water from said well or spring, which possessed medicinal properties; that it was planned, arranged and intended by the company that the two lots should constitute the curtilage appurtenant to the hotel and sanitarium, and they were such as were reasonably needed for the general purpose for which the said hotel or sanitarium was being constructed; that each of said lots formed a part of the single business plant of the company and constituted the curtilage appurtenant to the hotel or sanitarium; that it was planned, arranged and intended by the company to connect the lot on which said well or spring was located and the buildings thereon with the lot on which the said hotel or sanitarium was to be erected; that in pursuance of instructions given him by the company, the appellee made his plans to connect said lots; that the entire property became and was a single business plant; that the two lots had been purchased by the company for the purpose of a single business plant; and that the said hotel or sanitarium, as planned, arranged and intended by the company, would have no value except in connection with the spring which was located but a short distance from it. The only witness called by
Appeal dismissed at appellant’s costs.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Wirsing v. Pennsylvania Hotel & Sanitarium Company
- Cited By
- 12 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Mechanics’ liens — Curtilage—Separated lots. 1. By the Act of June 4, 1901, P. L. 431, curtilage, to be regarded as appurtenant to a building and bound by a mechanic’s lien filed against it, is “such as is reasonably needed for the general purpose” for which the structure is erected, and belongs to the same owner. As a rule, curtilage does not extend beyond the lot on which the building is erected, but when more land is reasonably needed for the general purpose of the structure and at the time the same is being erected the owner of it intends that another lot in addition to the one on which it is being built shall be included in the curtilage and constitute a part of the same, it is reasonable that a mechanic’s lien should extend to both. 2. A mechanic’s lien may be maintained against a hotel property and a lot separated from the hotel by a railroad and intervening private lands, where it appears that on the lot was a mineral spring, and that it was the intention of the owners to use the hotel in connection with the spring as a sanitarium, and to construct on the lot where the spring was situated a plant for supplying light and heat to the hotel.