Woodhams

This in an appeal by the plaintiff from a judgment in defendant’s favor and from an order denying a new trial.

The action was brought to obtain a judgment declaring that the plaintiff has a lien upon a certain lot of the defendant in the town of Santa Clara for street work done by plaintiff under the provisions of the so-called Improvement Act of 1911 (Stats. 1911, p. 730). The answer of the defendant presents as the principal proposition in the ease the question as to whether the matter of street improvement in the town of Santa Clara is governed by the provisions of the general statutes upon the subject, or by the provisions of the special charter of the town of Santa Clara.

The essential facts of the ease are these: The town of Santa Clara received its present charter in 1872 under a special act of reincorporation entitled “An Act to Beincorporate the town of Santa Clara” (Stats. 1871-72, p. 251). Section 13 et seq. of said act provides a complete scheme for the improvement of the public streets of the town, one of the distinctive features of which as applicable to the case at bar is the provision that the work of the particular street improvement shall be contracted for,…