PERSONAL PROPERTY. The right or in terest which a man has in things personal.
The right or interest less than a freehold which a man has in realty, or any right or interest which he has in things movable.
Personal property is to be distinguished from things personal. There may be, for example, a personal estate in realty, as chat tels real; but the only property which a man can have in things personal must be a personal property. The essential idea of personal property is that of property in a thing movable or separable from the realty, or of perishability or possibility of brief duration of interest as compared with the owner's life, in a thing real, without any action on the part of the owner. See 2 Bla. Corn. 14 and notes, 384 and notes.
It includes money, chattels, things in ac tion and evidence of debt ; Streever v. Birch, 62 Hun 298, 17 N. Y. Supp. 195; McLaughlin v. Alexander, 2 S. D. 226, 49 N. W. 99; and the right which a vendor has to enforce a contract for the sale of real property; Peo ple v. Willis, 133 N. Y. 383, 31 N. E. 225. It does not include dogs untaxed; State v. Doe, 79 Ind. 9, 41 Am. Rep. 599.
A crop growing in the ground is personal property so far as not to be considered an interest in land, under the statute of frauds; Smith v. Jones, 12 Me. 337; 5 B. & C. 829;
10 -Ad. & E. 753.
It is a general principle of American lav"i that stock in corporations is to be con sidered as personal property ; 4 Dane, Abr. 670; 1 Hill, R. P. 18 ; Tregear. v. Water Co., 76 Cal. 537, 18 Pac. 658, 9 Am. St. Rep. 245; though it was held that such stock was real estate; Griswold v. Penniman, 2 Conn. 567 ; but the rule was then changed by the legis lature.
Title to personal property is acquired— /trot, •by original acquisition by occupancy ; as, by capture in war, by finding a lost thing; second, by original acquisition by accession ; third, by original acquisition by intellectual labor : as, copyrights and patents for inven tions ; fourth, by transfer, which is by act of law, by forfeiture, by judgment, by in solvency, by intestacy; fifth, by transfer by act of the party, by gift, by sale. See Graves, Title to Pers. Prop; PEW ; PROP ERTY ; REAL PROPERTY ; POSSESSION.
Possession of personal property is prima facie title thereto; Crawford v. Kimbrough, 76 Ga. 299. See Lowery v. Erskine, 113 N. Y. 52, 20 N. E. 588.