209 Pa. 306 | Pa. | 1904
Opinion by
This was a bill by a landlord to restrain his tenants from removing trade fixtures from the demised premises. A preliminary injunction was awarded, but subsequently dissolved. Before final hearing all the articles were removed by the tenants, and the court’s decree was that they pay their landlord $5,400, the value of the articles removed, together with the costs of suit.
On September 17, 1892, the appellee leased the premises described in the bill to John C. McCurdy and James McCurdy, trading as McCurdy Brothers, for the term of ten years from October 1,1892. The court found that the articles enumerated in the bill were trade fixtures and belonged to the lessees under the lease of September 17, 1892. The legal conclusion of the learned judge, that the tenants had the right to remove them during the term of their lease, was, therefore, manifestly correct, and under the facts found, the landlord could have raised no question if they had been removed at any time prior to October 1, 1902. Before the expiration of the lease, the tenants, as required by it, gave three months’ notice to the landlord of their intention to terminate it.
In 1899 John C. McCurdy, as found by the court below, “ sold his interest in the stock of goods, wares and merchandise, together with the machinery and fixtures, contained in the
Under the foregoing facts, the court below made the decree mentioned for the reason that, even if the lease of July 11, 1902, is to be treated as a renewal of the lease of 1892, between the same parties, the appellants had no right to remove the fixtures after the expiration of the first lease, in the absence of a clause in the second one reserving the right to do so at its expiration. Though the lessees under the first lease had an unquestioned right to remove the fixtures at any time before October 1, 1902, and, if they had done so, could immediately after that date have reinstalled them in the premises with the same unquestioned right to remove them at any time before October 1, 1903, the view of the learned court below is that they became the property of the landlord, because they were not removed and reinstalled, aud there, is no clause in the “ extended and renewed ” lease reserving the right of the tenants to remove them before it expired. Though this has been declared to be the law by some courts, and the learned judge had authority outside of this state to sustain him, we cannot subscribe to such a doctrine as being either in harmony with reason or consistent with fair dealing between man and man.
When a tenant attaches to the land fixtures necessary for him in the conduct of his business, the presumption is that, at the expiration of his lease, he will remove them; and it is his right to do so. They are not put in for the benefit of the landlord, and, until the tenant, after his term expires, leaves them on the premises in which he no- longer has any interest, no intention can be imputed to him to abandon them to his lessor: Hill v. Sewald, 53 Pa. 271; Watts v. Lehman, 107 Pa. 106. There is a distinct finding that McCurdy brothers,
“ That a, tenant who erects fixtures for the benefit of his trade or business may remove them from the demised premises, is an established doctrine of the law, but with this qualification—that the removal be made during the term. After the term they become inseparable from the freehold and can neither be removed by the tenant nor recovered by him as personal chattels by an action of trover, or for goods sold and delivered : White v. Arndt, 1 Wh. 94, and the cases cited in the argument. If a tenant remain in possession after the expiration of his term, and perform all the conditions of the lease, it
that a tenant for years who erects fixtures for the benefit of his trade or business, may, at any time during the term, remove them from the demised premises; but cannot after the expiration thereof unless he remain in possession and hold over, so as to create an implied renewal of the lease: ” Darrah v. Baird, 101 Pa. 265. In the late case of Donnelly v. Frick, 207 Pa. 597, we said: “ The presumption of the law, being in fgvor of trade, is that a tenant does not intend to make his trade fixtures part of the realty for the permanent benefit of his landlord,' but will remove them before the end of his term; and it is only when he leaves without removing them during the term that an intention of making a gift of them to the landlord is to be imputed to him: Hill v. Sewald, 53 Pa. 271; Watts v. Lehman, 107 Pa. 106. If, during the term, no intention can be imputed to the tenant to make a gift to his landlord of fixtures, which he had attached to the land for the use of his business, and he has a right to remove them during the tenancy, the same rule ought to, and does apply, when, by permission of the landlord, even without a formal renewal or extension of the lease, he continues to remain on the premises for a definite or indefinite term. During such period, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, his intention as to his fixtures remains unchanged, and his right to remove them is unaffected by his holding over.” Of great weight is the following from the learned J udge Cooley, in Kerr v. Kingsbury, 39 Mich. 150 : “The right of a tenant to remove the erections made by him in furtherance of the purpose for which the premises were leased, is conceded. The principle which permits it is one of public policy, and has its foundation in the interest which society has that every person shall be encouraged to make the most beneficial use of his property the circumstances will admit of. On the other hand, the requirement that the tenant shall remove during his term whatever he proposes to claim a right to remove at all, is based upon a corresponding rule of public policy, for the protection of the landlord, and which is that the tenant shall not be su ffered, after he has surrendered the premises, to enter upon the possession of the
The decree of the court below is reversed and plaintiff’s bill dismissed at his costs, which include those on this appeal.