Horace Harmon Lurton

“ The defense asserted to the mechanics' lien was that there was no statute giving to a contractor for railway construction a lien upon the railway property, and, second, if there existed any such lien, the construction company, for the purpose of giving security to the holders of the construction bonds, had expressly covenanted and agreed to waive and forego whatever right or rights it might have had at the time of the execution of its contract, or which it might thereafter acquire, to claim a lien against the property of the railway company under the laws of the state of Indiana. ”

“ It was therefore a mere construction of the act as not including obligations to contractors as distinguished from obligations to mechanics, labores, and materialmen. This is claimed to have been such a change of decision as to impair the obligation of the contract under which the appellant had constructed the railway of the traction company. Curiously enough, the supreme court of Indiana has, pending this appeal, retracted the construction it placed upon the act of 1883, and has held that contractors are within the intent and meaning of the act. ”

“ The right to bring the case to this court from the district court by a direct appeal depended upon the question whether the decree denying to appellant the lien it claimed under the law of Indiana 'necessarily and directly involved the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States.' Empire State-Idaho Min. & Developing Co. ”