Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/612

 £98 rEDSRAIi BBPOBTES. �impaired in value by severance, and so would the leasehold. The value of each is enhanced by keeping them together, �It is sometimes loosely said in the books that whatever the tenant can remove must be levied on and sold as personal prop- erty. This may be so as to mere utensils of trade, or trade "fixtures," wbich are portable, and not seriously injured or ren- dered useless by severanoe. But not so as to structures like this. No doubt the press is valuable when severed, and can be plaeed on other land, but the mere cost of taking down and putting up is so great, that its value standing and ready for work is far greater, and it cannot be that a debtor can be compelled to submit to a mode of levy and sale which so deteriorates his property. If so, it could be severed and sold . on an execution for any small amount. Take the case of buildings built on leasehold land with a covenant for re- moval. Can it be said that they must be severed and sold by the sheriff, rather than sold ail together ? It does not fol- low because the leasehold, or the structures upon it, are per- sonal property, and are sold as such, that they are to b& treated as loose or portable chattels, or that the structures are to be severed to make them so. Both being chattels, it may, in a proper case, be sold as a whole; and, if the lease- hold be real estate, in the hands of the lessee, the fixtures on it must be real estate, as between him and his creditors, just. as they would be if his estate was freehold, Perhaps the- true theory is that the fixtures, when of a character to be real estate, if the owner bas a freehold in the land, are also real estate if he bas only a leasehold with a right of removal, and that it is the right of entry, severanoe, and removal which is levied on and sold. But the purohaser, if the leasehold can also be sold, buying that, bas the same right to let them vemain as they were, uhtil it suits his pleasure or interest to remove them, as the lessee or execution debtor had. And, in thia view, it is immaterial whether they be real estate or chattels, and I think the sheriff, in a case like this, whether he sells as real property or chattels, should sell ail together. �It is not necessary to extend thia opinion by reviewing the cases here cited which bave led me to this conclusion. Cases ����