Anderson v. Southern Realty Company

• Decision Date: 26 March 1928
• Docket Number: 310
• Citation: 4 S.W.2d 27,176 Ark. 752
• Parties: ANDERSON v. SOUTHERN REALTY COMPANY
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

4 S.W.2d 27

176 Ark. 752

ANDERSON v. SOUTHERN REALTY COMPANY

No. 310

Supreme Court of Arkansas

March 26, 1928

Appeal from Pulaski Chancery Court; Frank H. Dodge, Chancellor reversed in part.

Decree affirmed, reversed and dismissed.

Buzbee Pugh & Harrison, for appellant.

John L Carter and Utley & Hammock, for appellee.

OPINION

SMITH, J.

This suit was brought to restrain appellee from removing from an apartment building certain kitchen cabinets, kitchen stoves and refrigerators, the title to which was claimed by appellant apartment company, which company had bought certain lots in the city of Little Rock on which there was an apartment building, consisting of twenty apartments, at a commissioner's sale. In each apartment there was a kitchen cabinet, a refrigerator, and a gas kitchen cooking stove, which articles were alleged to be fixtures which were acquired under the commissioner's deed. The sale by the commissioner was under a decree foreclosing a mortgage on the lots, but the alleged fixtures here involved were bought and placed in the building some months after the execution of the mortgage.

The defendant filed an answer, in which it admitted that plaintiff had bought the apartment building, in which the articles alleged to be fixtures were located, at a commissioner's sale, and that it was the owner of the record legal title to the lots on which the apartment building stood, and that it had, as alleged in the complaint executed a quitclaim deed to these lots to the plaintiff. It appears, however, that the quitclaim deed was executed after a conference for the purpose only of clearing up the title conveyed by the commissioner under the decree foreclosing the mortgage and to clear up a controversy which had arisen as to the payment of a premium on a fire insurance policy on the building, and that no question was made at the time of the execution of the quitclaim deed about conveying the stoves, etc., as fixtures, and that the grantor in this quitclaim deed had no such intention. Defendant asserted ownership of the alleged fixtures, in its answer, for the reason that they were no part of the apartment building, and were not embraced or included in the quitclaim deed.

The architect who erected the apartment building, and who owned an interest therein at the time of its erection, testified that the contract for the erection of the building did not include the stoves, etc., and that, when a building contract included such articles as fixtures, they were shown on the plans of the building, and the alleged fixtures here involved were not included in the plans.

V. N. Carter, who at one time owned the building, and who installed the stoves, etc., testified that it was not a fact that all apartment buildings have the equipment here involved, and that he rented one apartment in this building to a tenant who furnished his own stove, and that he himself occupied one of the apartments for a time, during which he also furnished his own stove.

By stipulation signed by the parties the value of the equipment here in...