What is the effect of a lien on the value of a Defendant's property?

The defendant having been deprived of the possession and control of the property, and his rightful relation to it having been usurped by a trespasser, his mere silence, if it be assumed, or his omission to forbid the plaintiff from proceeding under his contract, cannot be construed into consent on his part to anything that was done by the parties in possession, or by the plaintiff acting under their authority. The true owner was not bound to seek out the plaintiff, or any one else acting under a hostile claim, and inform him of his rights at the peril of subjecting his property, which at all times he was seeking to recover, to the burden of a lien based upon acts manifestly wrongful, and against which he in every proper way protested. Cowen v. Paddock, supra. The situation is not changed by the fact, if it be so, that the defendant's property has been enhanced in value by the plaintiff. A learned authority on the law of damages, in discussing the rule applicable to cases quite analogous, remarked that the improvements may be very valuable, but they may be quite unsuited to the use which