Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 3).pdf/453

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
MARTIN v. HAWTHORN.
413

valid under Ch. 88, Laws 1889. We think the lien proceedings were fatally defective, and that the judgment must therefore be reversed. The statute under which defendants attempted to justify their seizure of the grain, while incomplete and incongruous in many of its provisions, yet imperatively requires, as we construe it, that the party seeking to perfect a lien upon grain threshed by him to file with the register of deeds a written and verified statement embracing certain features enumerated in the statute, among which is a description of the land upon which the grain was grown. In Parker v. Bank, 54 N. W. 313, this court had occasion to consider this feature of the statute, and in its opinion the following language was used: “Yet the statute is peremptory in requiring the statement to contain a description of the land on which the grain was grown, in order to entitle a party to the lien given by the statute.” We still think that the benefits of the lien cannot be realized in any case without a substantial compliance with that feature of the law which positively requires the filing of a statement. In the case under consideration the thresher (Hawthorn) filed a statement which was regular on its face, and which embraced a description of certain land, viz: W. ¥% section 28, township 144, range 65; and the statement further declared that the grain in’ question was grown upon such land. But the filing of a statement regular upon its face does not alone suffice to secure the benefits of the lien in a contested case. It was necessary to show at the trial that the grain threshed was in fact grown upon the land described in the statement on file. The only evidence offered by defendants to establish this vital fact came from the defendant Hawthorn, who testified as follows: The defendant William R. Hawthorne testifies that he went upon the west-half of (W. 1/2) of section 28, township 144 north, of range 65 west of 5th p. m., in Stutsman County, N. D., to thresh, and threshed the grain of plaintiff thereon.” This evidence, not being contradicted, certainly showed that defendants threshed grain for the plaintiff upon the land described in the account on file. This evidence was, however, wholly irrelevant to any issue