This is a part of The Worker’s Liens Casebook, by Robert Fenwick Elliott. Copyright © 2010
Copies of text of no more than 500 words may be made, provided they are accompanied by due attribution.
- Under section 4, workers are entitled to a lien over the land for their wages. There need be no contractual nexus between the worker and the owner, provided that there is the assent, express or implied, of the owner to the work being done.
- The section is hardly used in modern times, not least because under section 4(3) the lien is limited to $200. It is not worth going to all the trouble required by the Act to secure such a paltry sum.
- The Worker’s Lien under section 4 is more extensive than a contractor’s lien under section 5 that in the sense that, if he is doing work in connection with pastoral, agricultural, horticultural or mining pursuits, he not only gets a lien over the land, but also on all goods on the land belonging to the owner.