In Re: El Dorado Improvement Corporation, Debtor. Sundt Corporation v. Dynamic Finance Corporation

OPINION

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge.

One commentator describes the frontier equivalent of mechanic’s hens:

If you furnish lumber to a man to build his house and he doesn’t pay you, you shoot him. If he sells the house and the new owner refuses to pay you, you shoot the new owner. 1

What this regime lacked in due process, it made up for in clarity, the importance of which is driven home by the somewhat opaque issue we tackle in this case: whether a South Lake Tahoe redevelopment project was “subject to acceptance by any public entity” under California’s mechanic’s hen law.

1. The redevelopment project…