Moore v. Equitable Ice Co.

⁵⁵⁹ Pattison, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant on the 22nd day of [November, 1912, filed and had recorded in the office of the clerk of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County a mechanics’ lien against the Equitable Ice Company, C. Prank Carr and O. Frank Carr & Co., for labor and materials furnished in equipping and remodeling their ice plant and property. On the, 23rd day of December of the same year he filed his bill in equity in the Circuit Court for said county asking for the enforcement of his lien, and on the 15th day of June, 1915, that Court passed a decree, by which it adjudged, ordered and decreed that unless the aforementioned defendants, within thirty days from the date of the decree, paid to> the plaintiff the amount of said lien claim with interest thereon from the date of the decree and cost of suit, the property mentioned in the proceedings should be sold, for the payment of' said lien claim, interest and cost. Prom that decree an appeal was taken to this Court, which resulted in the affirmance of the decree.

After the passage of said decree in the lower Court, the property, upon which the lien rested, was sold to the appellee, the Hvattsville Ice Company, and upon the affirmance of the decree by this Court, the property was thereafter sold under said decree, and an audit made and filed distributing' the proceeds of sale. At this stage of the proceedings a petition was filed by the appellant asking the Court to amend its decree of June 15th, 1915, by striking out the provision allowing interest upon the lien claim only from the date of the decree, and ordering that interest be paid thereon from the date of the filing of the lien claim for record on [November 22nd, 1912. The prayer of the petition is based upon the allegation “that through a mistake or oversight in the preparation of said decree, the said decree provided that interest should be paid on the amount as claimed in said mechanics’ lien from the date of said decree; but that your petitioner, who is plaintiff in the above entitled cause, is advised that ho is entitled to receive interest on the amount of his claim from the date ⁵⁶⁰ of filing his lien of record, to wit: ETovember 22nd, 1912, against the property mentioned in the above entitled cause as shown by said mechanics’ lien and not from the date of said decree, whereas, through a mistake or oversight in the decree, it only provided that he should receive interest on said amount from the date of said decree.” The Court on the 13 th day of Eebruary, 1917, passed an order denying the prayer of the petitioner and on the same day passed a further order directing that “the cause be referred to the auditor to re-state Account ‘A’ in accordance with his order and a former order of this date as to interest; the said auditor to allow interest from the date of the decree to the time of stating the account”; and on the same day a third order ratifying and confirming the audit and account so made was passed. It is from these three orders that the appeal in this case is taken.

The question presented is