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capacity, whether made by law or by judicial act, since no difference can be established between the cases, nor does any exist on the Continent. Thus, an act facilitating the transfer of property vested in lunatics, can not be applied on the strength of a judgment, by a foreign competent court, declaring the person a lunatic; nor will the committee appointed by such court have any authority over the lunatic's person here."

TITLE XX V.

PROPERTY.

CHAPTER XLI. General provisions.

XLII. Transfer.

XLIII. Succession.

XLIV. Will.

CHAPER XLI.

GENERAL PROVISIONS.

ARTICLE 560. Property defined.

561. What things are property.

562. What wild animals.

563. Real and personal property.

564. Real property.

565. Land.

566. Fixtures.

567. Appurtenances.

568. Personal property.

569. Property in possession, or in action.

570. Law of immovables.

571. Law of movables.

572. Local character of public funds, and corporate shares.

573. Local character of shipping.

574. Effect of matrimonial settlement.

575. Rights of property of persons married without a

settlement.

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560. The ownership of a thing is the right of one or more persons to possess and use it to the exclusion of

others. In this Code, the thing of which there may be ownership is called property.'

This and the eight following Articles are from the Civil Code, reported for New York, § 159, &c.

1 In another sense, property is the right of a person or persons, public or private, to appropriate a thing (tangible or intangible) to the exclusion of its promiscuous use by others. This has been also called domain. The word is here used, however, in its more general sense.

What things are property.

561. There may be ownership of all inanimate things which are capable of appropriation, or of manual delivery; of all domestic animals; of all obligations; of all products of the mind; of such products of labor or skill, as the good will of a business, trade-marks and signs; and of rights created or granted by statute.

Wild animals.

562. Animals wild by nature are the subjects of ownership while living, only when on the land of the person claiming them, or when tamed, or taken and held in possession, or disabled and immediately pursued. Real and personal property.

563. For the purposes of this Code, property is designated as either,

1. Real or immovable; or,

2. Personal or movable.

Real property.

564. Real or immovable property consists of, 1. Land;

2. That which is affixed to land; and,

3. That which is incidental, or appurtenant to land.. The existing rule of international law is that the question whether an article of property is or is not an immovable, is to be determined by the law of the place where such article of property is locally situated. Story, Conf. of L., § 447; Fœlix, Droit Intern. Privé, vol. I., p. 121. The above Article, and the four following, which are taken from the Civil Code, reported for the State of New York, are suggested in order to secure & uniform rule for all cases arising under this Code.

Land.

565. Land is the solid material of the earth, whatever may be the ingredients of which it is composed, whether soil, rock, or other substance.

Fixtures.

566. A thing is deemed to be affixed to land when it is attached to it by roots, as in the case of trees, vines, or shrubs; or imbedded in it, as in the case of walls; or permanently resting upon it, as in the case of buildings; or permanently attached to what is thus permanent, as by means of nails, bolts or screws.

Appurtenances.

8

567. A thing is deemed to be incidental' or appurtenant' to land, when it is by right used with the land for its benefit; as in the case of a way, or watercourse; or of light, air or heat, from or across the land of another.

1 Smyles v. Hastings, 22 New York Rep., 217, 222.

3

Lampman v. Milks, 21 New York Rep., 505, 511.

Ackroyd v. Smith, 10 Common Bench Rep., 164, 187.

Personal property.

568. Every kind of property that is not real, or immovable, is personal, or movable.

Property in possession or in action.

569. Personal property is of two kinds: 1. Property in possession; and,

2. Property in action.

Property in possession can only be such as is capable of manual delivery.

Law of immovables.

570. The law of the place where immovables are situate, exclusively regulates and determines the rights of parties, the modes of transfer, or of charging or otherwise disposing thereof, whether between living persons or by will, and the formalities to accompany them.

As to the extent to which this rule is adopted on the Continent of Europe, and among other States which have followed the French Code, see Falix, Droit Intern. Privè, vol. I. p. 119.

The form in which the rule is stated in Curtis . Hutton, 14 Vesey's Rep., 536 (approved in Oakey v. Bennett, 11 Howard U. S. Supreme Ct. Rep., 33, 45, as a clear and precise statement of a doctrine uniformly recognized by the American courts), is this:

The validity of every disposition of real estate depends upon the law of the country in which that estate is situated.

It was held in the case of Hutcheson v. Peshine (16 New Jersey Chan. Rep., 167), that the courts of a State will not recognize conveyances of real property within its jurisdiction, in trust for creditors, made without its jurisdiction and under the laws of another State. The rule was stated to rest not only on the acknowledged principle of law applicable to all assignments, voluntary or involuntary, that the title and disposi tion of real estate are exclusively subject to the laws of the country where it is situated, which alone can prescribe the mode by which title to it can pass; but upon the further reason, that the laws of one State will not be permitted to control the trust, the action of the trustee, and the disposition of the trust property in another, the subject of the trust being real estate. Citing Lessee of McCullough's Heirs v. Roderick, 2 Hammond's (Ohio) Rep., 380; Rogers v. Allen, 3 Id., 488; Osborn v. Adams, 18 Pickering's (Massachusetts) Rep., 247.

A mortgage of immovables can only be made according to the law of the place of the property. Hosford v. Nichols, 1 Paige's (New York) Rep., 220; and see Goddard v. Sawyer, 91 Massachusetts (9 Allen) Rep., 78. Law of movables.

571. Subject to other provisions of this Part,' of the Code, movables are deemed to follow the person of their owner; and the validity and effect of any transaction by him affecting the same, whether by acts between living persons, or by will, depend exclusively upon the law of the place where the transaction is had.'

I The rule that movables follow the person, says Story (Confl. of L., § 550), is a legal fiction, and yields whenever it is necessary, for the purpose of justice, that the actual situs of the thing shall be examined. It does not authorize the exception to the general rule, that a nation within whose territory personal property is actually situated, has entire dominion over it while therein. Compare, to the same effect, Green v. Van Buskirk, 7 Wallace's U. S. Supr. Ct. Rep., 139. See Articles 581, 582, and 583. The indorsements of negotiable paper are, according to Chapter XLVI., another exception.

2

Fælix (Droit Intern. Privè, vol. 1, p. 127) cites an almost universal concurrence of authority for the rule that the personal statute governs the movables; and he shows, in note 2, on page 133, that where there is a difference between the domicil and the nationality, the law of the domicil must apply. This interpretation of the rule is more clearly enforced by Demangeat, in notes, on page 127 a, 58 b, 53 a, and 132 a.

The rule is universally recognized in the United States. See Civil Code reported for New York, § 364. The doctrine is commonly stated substantially as follows:

Personal property has no situs, and a title acquired to it, if good by the law of the domicil, is good everywhere, and will be recognized and enforced in every State, unless it conflicts with its laws or the rights of its citizens. Marcy v. Marcy, 23 Connecticut Rep., 308.

Story, in discussing the origin of this doctrine, says: "If the law rei

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