FIXTURES, in American and English law, chattels so attached to the freehold as to con stitute, in legal contemplation, a part of it. The harshness of the common law favoring the freeholder in this matter has been much modified in late years by statutes and by de cisions of the courts, both in the United States and in the British Empire. The question as to whether a chattel is to be treated as such or as a fixture and therefore a part of the realty is important because of the radically different rules of law which apply to the disposition or acquirement of personalty and of realty. The question arises very frequently in the relations of landlord and tenant, of buyer and seller, of executor and heir, and of executor and re mainderman or reversioner.
As to what constitutes a fixture is largely determined by the circumstances in each case, but a controlling factor is whether there has or has not been any actual annexation to the soil. The general rule at common law is that if a tenant affixes a chattel to the freehold during his tenure he may not remove it except by the permission of the owner. Both in the United States and Great Britain, an exception has been made in the case of trade fixtures, subject to the qualification that the removal must be made by the tenant before the close of his term. However, it has been held that even trade fixtures cannot be removed by a tenant if such removal causes injury to the freehold, changes the nature of the articles or is contrary to the usual custom of the com munity. Buildings erected by the tenant may or may not be fixtures. They are not such if built upon rollers, blocks or the like. Orna mental fixtures, as chandeliers, marble chim ney-pieces and pictures, particularly when se cured by screws, have been held to belong to the tenant. Heavy objects, as monuments, unattached to the realty in any manner except by their own weight, if intended to improve the freehold permanently, have, on the contrary, been held to be fixtures.
In both England and the United States the rule as to what constitutes fixtures varies some what with the parties in controversy. The American decisions are not in accord with the English holding that a tenant, in the absence of an express agreement or permission by the landlord, cannot remove buildings erected by the former for agricultural purposes. English decisions favor the heir as against a remainder man. As between seller and buyer the tend ency in both countries is to consider all ques tionable articles as fixtures, although the in tention of the parties has weight, and the same rule applies as to mortgagor and mortgagee. Likewise the heir is favored as against the executor.
Annexation may be either actual or con structive. As examples of articles held to be constructively annexed may be cited deeds and chattels relating to the title of the inheritance, and these go to the heir.
A tenant for years may exercise the right of removal after his term if he is in possession and rightfully holding over.
FIZEAU, Armand Hippolyte Louis, French physicist: b. Paris, 23 Sept. 1819; d. Venteuil, 18 Sept. 1896. His first researches were in photography. Together with J. B. L. Foucault (q.v.), he carried on researches con cerning the interference of heat and of light. The results as to the velocity of light (q.v.) that constitute his best-known work were pub lished in 1849; and in 1850, with the collabora tion of E. Gounelle, he determined the speed of the electric current. His later investigations dealt with the use of condensers in connection with the induction coil, and with the expan sion of solids by heat and its measurement by means of the interference of light. In 1860 he was elected to the French Academy and from 1878 on he was a member of the Bureau des Longitudes.