Samuel Freeman Miller

“ They knew that the road was yet to be built, and that while such building would add to the value of their security, the law gave to the men whose labor and money built it a lien superior to that of the mortgage. Now that the venture in which both embarked is to end in loss to one or the other of them, there is no judicial propriety in straining the law to limit the rights of one party rather than those of the other. If that law by its fair construction gives the mechanic a lien for a few thousand dollars on the whole road, instead of a part of it, the law should prevail. ”

“ Slye, 45 id. 615.
'A mechanic's lien,' says the court in the latter case, 'can, it is true, become paramount to a mortgage executed upon a partially erected building, provided the work be done or materials furnished for the purpose of completing the building. This is the plain provision of the statute, and, to our mind, it is not unreasonable. Whoever takes a mortgage upon a building in the process of erection, should assume that the mechanics' work is to go forward, and he may form some estimate of the amount that will be required. ”

“ The mortgage of appellants can have no lien on any of the road beyond the first few miles upon any other theory, for its descriptive language refers to the road as one and not as several subdivisions. It is not easy to see how it can be held to be one road for the purposes of the mortgage, and two or three pieces of road for the purposes of the mechanics' lien. This continuation of the road beyond Bloomfield was as useful to the security of that mortgage as the part between Viele and Bloomfield. ”