Duffus v. Howard Furnace Co.

8 A.D. 567, 40 N.Y.S. 925, 75 N.Y. St. Rep. 320, 1896 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2382
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedJuly 1, 1896
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 8 A.D. 567 (Duffus v. Howard Furnace Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Duffus v. Howard Furnace Co., 8 A.D. 567, 40 N.Y.S. 925, 75 N.Y. St. Rep. 320, 1896 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2382 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1896).

Opinion

Ward, J.:

John Schaffer, of the city of Syracuse, was, on the 8th day of October, 1891, the owner of lot 21, in block Ho. 613, in the city of Syracuse, said lot being forty feet front and eight rods deep. Upon this lot a new house was constructed by Schaffer, and a portable furnace put therein by the defendant, under a contract between Schaffer and the defendant, whereby the defendant was to be paid for the furnace $155 on the following March. The contract was in writing and was signed in duplicate, and contained this clause: The furnace, together with all material furnished by the first party (the defendant), shall remain the property of said first party until the contract price below named is fully paid, and the second party shall be liable for any damage to said apparatus, after completion, until said amount is paid in full.”

This furnace was for the purpose of heating the house. It was set up in the cellar of the house upon a row of bricks placed upon the bottom of the cellar, connected with a smoke pipe that extended into the chimney, and with hot-air pipes made of tin, extending through the house, and there was a cold-air box also connected with the furnace. The furnace could be readily disconnected from the cellar and the pipes and cold-air box without any substantial injury to the building. The furnace was put in early in December, 1891; and two days before this, and on the seventh day of December, Schaffer and his wife executed and delivered to the plaintiff a mortgage upon the house and lot in question as a collateral security for the payment of any and all promissory notes which had had theretofore or which should thereafter be given by either Schaffer or his wife, and which had been or might thereafter be indorsed by the plaintiff for the [569]*569accommodation and benefit of Schaffer; and Schaffer covenanted to save the plaintiff harmless from any and all loss, costs and expenses, or counsel fees, which might accrue to the plaintiff by reason of any indorsements as aforesaid, and as security for the payment of any other indebtedness, of any name or nature, to the extent of $3,500, which, if done, would render the conveyance void.

Schaffer was also the owner of four other houses and lots, or buildings and lots, in the city of Syracuse, upon which the plaintiff took mortgages from Schaffer as collateral security, with the same condition in each, as above given, one on August 27, 1891, for $1,000 ; another of January 15,1892, of $2,000; one of February 20,1892, of $6,000, and one of April 7,1892, of $6,000, making a total of $18,500. These mortgages were collateral to notes that were renewed monthly, made by Schaffer and indorsed by the plaintiff, and the plaintiff was to receive as compensation for such indorsements at the rate of two per cent a month or twenty-four per cent a year. The business was all transacted at the same bank in Syracuse where the notes were cashed and the money advanced to Schaffer, less, we conclude from the evidence, the two per cent bonus to the plaintiff. The notes outstanding at the time of the trial in the Municipal Court were thirteen in number and of various amounts.

On the 6th of May, 1892, Schaffer and his wife executed to the plaintiff what was called in the case a blanket mortgage upon all the five lots above referred to, containing the same conditions as first above set forth and securing the plaintiff to the extent of $18,000. Three days later Schaffer executed to the plaintiff in writing a sale and transfer of all the right, title and interest of Schaffer to all the rents, with leases, then due and to become due to Schaffer on the said houses and lots, and the plaintiff went into possession of all the houses and lots and collected the rents and controlled the property thereafter. The plaintiff immediately commenced foreclosure- upon this blanket mortgage, and after-wards amended his complaint by including all the other mortgages, none of which were surrendered upon the execution of the blanket mortgage, and this foreclosure resulted in a sale of the premises in August for $4,000, the property being bid in by the plaintiff, leaving a net application of the proceeds of the sale upon the mortgages of $2,640.30. In the meantime the defendant, claim[570]*570ing to own the furnace (it not having been paid for), removed the furnace, for which this action was brought with the result in the Municipal Court as above indicated.

We are favored with two able opinions in this case by the learned judges in the courts below, the first in favor of the defendant by the judge of the Municipal Court, and the second in favor of the plaintiff by the county judge, reported in 15 Miscellaneous Reports, 169; 37 Hew York Supplement, 19. The amount found due in the foreclosure action upon the notes was $12,523.01, with interest from July 3, 1893. The net result of these business operations of the plaintiff was, that he obtained all these properties upon the foreclosure, which but a few months before he had deemed security for $18,000, including the property where the furnace was placed, four brick houses and also brick flats on valuable lots in different portions of the city of Syracuse, and a deficiency judgment of nearly $10,000, including whatever he may have received from the hank at the rate of two per cent a month.

The cases of Ballard v. Burgett (40 N. Y. 314) and of Austin v. Dye (46 id. 500) finally settled the law in this State to be that, where personal property was transferred upon an agreement that the title to the property should remain in the conditional seller until paid for, the seller could retake the property, if not paid for as stipulated, even from a bona fide purchaser from the conditional purchaser while in his possession.

Folger, J., says in Tifft v. Horton (53 N. Y. 380): “ It is well settled that chattels may be annexed to the real estate and still retain their character as personal property. (See Voorhees v. McGinnis, 48 N. Y. 278, and cases there cited.) Of the various circumstances which may determine whether in any case this character is or is not retained, the intention with which they are annexed is one, and if the intention is that they shall not by annexation become a part of the freehold, as a general rule they will not. The limitation to this is where the subject or mode of annexation is such as that the attributes of personal property cannot he predicated of the thing in controversy (Ford v. Cobb, 20 N. Y. 344), as where the property could not he removed without practically destroying it, or where it or part of it is essential to the support of that to which it is attached.”

[571]*571Some of the cases use the expression that, where it is expressly-agreed that the property attached to the freehold shall not become a jiart of the realty, that there is impressed upon it, although attached to the realty, the character-of personal property, and as germane to this question we cite Sisson v. Hibbard (75 N. Y. 542); Ford v. Cobb (20 id. 346); Tyson v. Post (108 id. 217); Manning v. Ogden (70 Hun, 399); Phenix Iron-Works Co. v. McEvony ([Neb.], 66 N. W. Rep. 290).

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8 A.D. 567, 40 N.Y.S. 925, 75 N.Y. St. Rep. 320, 1896 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2382, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/duffus-v-howard-furnace-co-nyappdiv-1896.