Hulme v Brigham [1943] KB 152
The King’s Bench Division held that six hired printing machines remained chattels, although they were connected to driving apparatus fixed to the premises. The receivers could not retain them as part of the mortgaged property.
Facts
In February 1935, Hulme hired six printing machines to Greycaine Ltd, a printing and bookbinding company, for £18 a week, with an option to purchase. The machines were to remain his property. Before this agreement, the company had issued mortgage debentures secured by trust deeds in 1929 and 1934. The security covered its freehold premises and fixed plant, machinery and fixtures. Hulme did not know about the debentures and had made no inquiry about them.
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When the security became enforceable, receivers took possession of the premises in November 1936. They refused to return the machines, contending that they had become fixtures and therefore formed part of the mortgage security. Hulme sought delivery of the machines, or their value, and damages for their detention.
The machines weighed between nine and twelve tons each and stood by their own weight. They were not bolted to the floor or otherwise fastened to the building. They were connected to separate driving apparatus, parts of which were fixed to the freehold. Those connections could be detached, and the machines dismantled and removed without unbolting the motors from the floor.
Issue
Had the machines become fixtures because they were connected to driving apparatus which was itself attached to the premises?
Decision and reasoning
Birkett J gave judgment for Hulme on 20 November 1942. The machines had retained their character as chattels, so the receivers had no right to withhold them from their owner.
The judge considered physical attachment as one part of the wider inquiry into annexation. An unattached object could become part of the land in appropriate circumstances, while an attached object might remain a chattel. The nature of the article, the purpose and circumstances of its attachment, and the position of the competing claimants all mattered.
The close analogy was Northern Press and Engineering Co v Shepherd (1908) 52 SJ 715. A printing machine could be regarded as a complete article distinct from the apparatus supplying its motive power. Treating the connection to that apparatus as decisive would give excessive weight to the connection and insufficient weight to the nature of the machine itself.
The result therefore depended on these machines and their installation. It did not establish that every item resting on its own weight must remain a chattel, or that machinery can never become a fixture.
Judgment: Hulme v Brigham [1943] KB 152.
