182 Iowa 1283 | Iowa | 1917
When the improvements under consideration have been attached to the realty by one not the owner of the realty, the implication of intention assumes a different color. This is so when a tenant, for his own purpose of utilizing the leased premises, attaches thereto such equipment as seems to him advantageous to the use of the leasehold by himself. Here again, the earlier cases held grimly, and with little reason, that any equipment firmly affixed to the realty by the tenant became at once a part of the realty, and the property of the landlord. See Carlin v. Ritter, 68 Md. 178, and the cases collated therein. See Ray v. Young, 160 Iowa 613. That doctrine has been quite generally repudiated by the later cases. It was repudiated in Maryland by the legislature, following the decision in the case above cited. It was repudiated in this state in McCarthy v. Trumacher, 108 Iowa 281; Daly v. Simonson, 126 Iowa 716, 719; Ray v. Young, supra.
As between landlord and tenant, the doctrine of trade fixtures has been given practically universal recognition, and is generally applied with much liberality to the protection of the tenant in the ownership of such fixtures. Theoretically, this is deemed as tending to encourage trade and industry. Manifestly, a tenant would hesitate to incur large expense in equipping himself with the necessities of his trade or industry, if the ownership of the equipment thus acquired is to pass at once, by operation of law, from him to his landlord. Nor would the landlord be easily induced to acquire such equipment for the tenant if, by the
The holding was that he intended the equipment to attach to the realty as a part thereof. In Ray v. Young, 160 Iowa 633, the question arose as against a tenant who had built the improvement upon the leased property for trade purposes. It was held that the doctrine of trade fixtures applied, and that the tenant was entitled to hold the same as chattel, and to remove the same without injury to the realty.
The appellant concedes that the Manufacturing Company became his tenant at once upon the declaration of forfeiture, and in effect concedes that any equipment there
We reach the conclusion that the facts in evidence would not justify the finding of an intention by implication or otherwise on the part of the Manufacturing Company, at the time it installed its equipment, to make the same a part of the realty. Taking the case in all its facts, we think .no different inference of intention would be implied than -would be implied as against a tenant occupying the same realty. The practical interest of the Manufacturing Company was substantially the same as that of a tenant, especially in view of its known insolvency and, therefore, inability to perform its executory contract. This is in accord with the finding of the trial court, and its decree is, therefore, — Affirmed.