Bell v. Looker
Bell v. Looker
Opinion of the Court
This is an application for an injunction to prevent defendant from removing electrical machinery from a flour-mill site at Lynch, and from selling property already removed therefrom. Plaintiff is the holder of a mortgage on the real estate constituting the mill property, and alleges that the electrical machinery is incumbered by his lien. After the execution of plaintiff’s mortgage defendant purchased the mill and the property, connected with it and removed part of the electrical machinery. He pleads in his answer that the machinery in controversy is personal property; that it is free from plaintiff’s lien; that plaintiff treated it as personalty, having transferred it by bill of sale; that defendant acquired it as such; and that plaintiff is estopped to assert the contrary. From a decree granting an injunction, defendant has appealed.
The question presented by the appeal is whether the electrical machinery, as between the parties hereto, is part of the real estate upon which the mortgage is a lien. Plain tiff argues the affirmative, and defendant the negative.
In the deeds the realty was described by metes and bounds and included appurtenances, but the electrical machinery was not specifically mentioned. The bills of sale described the property in the electric plant as personalty. Defendant testified without contradiction that Kurpgeweit had said he acquired title by bill of sale and by deed, and that the realty was conveyed by deed and the personalty by bill of sale. Plaintiff himself executed and delivered a bill of sale to Kurpgeweit, defendant’s transferror. In it he asserted that the property described there
Though the bill of sale in the present case stated it was executed for “one dollar and other valuable considerations,” there was in reality only one consideration for it and the deed. Since there were two separate instruments, however, one purporting to transfer personalty and the other to convey realty, the single consideration could make no difference to a third person who was without knowledge of that fact. Zeller v. Adam, 30 N. J. Eq. 421.
To repeat, the electrical machinery could he detached without material injury to the remaining real estate. Owing to its nature it could properly be bought, sold and. held as personalty. Defendant purchased it as such. The defense of estoppel is established by uncontradicted evidence. It follows that the mortgage on the real estate is not a lien on the machinery in the hands of defendant. The decree granting the injunction is therefore reversed and the action dismissed.
Reversed and dismissed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.