CHANDISE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CHANDISEAuthored

The Law Mind • 971 words

Definition

Chandise (also appearing as "merchandise" or contracted as "chandise" in older statutory and commercial usage) is a term of art drawn from the Statute of Frauds, referring to the class of movable, personal property subject to the writing requirements imposed on contracts for the sale of goods above a specified value. In its legal application, the term encompasses movable goods and chattels — things capable of delivery and transfer between parties — but excludes fixtures and other property that has become legally attached to or part of the realty.

Two boundaries are especially significant:

1. Fixtures are not chandise. Property affixed to land loses its character as movable goods and falls outside the term's scope for purposes of the Statute of Frauds.

2. Annual growing crops — including potatoes, corn, turnips, and similar crops harvested in the ordinary course of husbandry — are generally treated as chandise, and therefore personal property subject to sale contracts requiring compliance with statutory formalities. The precise line between a growing crop as personal property (chandise) and a growing crop as part of the realty is a recurring question in historical caselaw and depends on the nature of the crop, the terms of the transaction, and the timing of harvest.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Chandise" has no independent entry in modern usage. It survives primarily as a truncation of "merchandise" — goods bought and sold in trade.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Merchandise" denotes goods, wares, and commodities bought and sold in commerce; the business of trade.

The gap between common and legal usage is not one of meaning reversal but of legal boundary-drawing. In ordinary speech, merchandise simply means tradeable goods. In the legal context of the Statute of Frauds, "chandise" (or "goods and chandise") is a term of limitation: not everything colloquially understood as a tradeable good qualifies. The fixture rule and the contested treatment of growing crops create categories where the legal and ordinary meanings diverge in practical application.

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Common Confusion

Chandise is frequently confused with the broader category of personal property or chattels. The confusion matters: all chandise is personal property, but not all personal property is chandise for Statute of Frauds purposes. Fixtures that have been severed from realty, and certain interests in land (such as standing timber or unharvested perennial crops in some jurisdictions), may be treated as personal property in some contexts while still falling outside the scope of "goods and chandise" as the Statute of Frauds employs the phrase. Researchers should also note that the treatment of growing crops is not uniform across historical authorities — some early cases (e.g., the Taunt. 38 line) held annual crops outside the term, while the dominant later view brought them within it.

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Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in commercial law, contract history, or property should attend to several navigational points:

The term appears almost exclusively in the context of the Statute of Frauds and its progeny. When you encounter "chandise" or "goods and chandise" in historical sources, the question being asked is nearly always whether a writing was required to enforce a contract of sale — not a general question about the nature of goods.

The fixture boundary is a persistent trap. A researcher tracing disputes over equipment, built-in machinery, or agricultural structures will find that classification as a fixture or as chandise is outcome-determinative and that the historical record is inconsistent across jurisdictions and time periods.

The growing crops question sits at the intersection of property and commercial law and generated substantial English caselaw before and after Bouvier's period. American jurisdictions received and sometimes modified these rules. Researchers consulting Bouvier should cross-reference the cited English reports (Barnewall & Cresswell, Meeson & Welsby, Adolphus & Ellis) against American authorities, since American courts did not uniformly follow English treatment of crops as personalty.

The Uniform Commercial Code's definition of "goods" (Article 2) eventually absorbed and clarified many of these questions in American law, but that development is post-Bouvier and not reflected in historical dictionary sources. Researchers projecting backward from UCC concepts into pre-code sources risk anachronism.

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Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's Law Dictionary is the primary source here. Bouvier treats "chandise" as a phrase embedded in the Statute of Frauds and immediately identifies its operative limits: fixtures excluded, annual crops included (with a noted counterauthority). The entry is brief and functional — Bouvier provides the rule and string-cites English caselaw without extended analysis.

What Bouvier does not provide: any synthesis of the American reception, any discussion of what constitutes a fixture for purposes of the rule, or any reconciliation of the split between the Taunt. 38 line (crops outside chandise) and the dominant English cases holding annual crops within it. The references to Addison on Contracts and Blackburn's treatise on sales would have supplied that depth for Bouvier's contemporary readers; modern researchers will need to reconstruct that context independently.

The maxim entries appearing in the same source material — Meum est promittere, non dimittere and related maxims — are unrelated to chandise and appear to be adjacent dictionary material; they carry no interpretive weight for this term.

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Jurisdictional Note

The Statute of Frauds originated in English law (29 Car. II, c. 3, 1677) and was received into American law through colonial and state adoption. Jurisdictional variation in how "goods and chandise" was defined — particularly regarding growing crops and fixtures — developed through state common law and early commercial statutes. The UCC has substantially harmonized modern American treatment, but pre-code and non-UCC contexts remain jurisdictionally variable.

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CHANDISEmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

A phrase used in the Stat- ute of Frauds. Fixtures do not come within it; 1 Cr. M. & R. 275. Growing crops of potatoes, corn, turnips, and other annual crops, are within it; 8 D. & R. 314; 10 B. & C. 446; 4 M. & W. 347; contra, 2 Taunt. 38. See Addison, Contr. 31; Blackb. § 4, 5; 2 Dana 206; 2 Rawle 161; 5 B. & C. 829; 10 Ad. & E. 753. As to when growing crops are part of the realty and when personal property, see 1 Washb. R. P. 8. A contract for the sale of apples, peaches, and blackberries which might be raised during certain years, are chattels personal and not within the stat- ute; 37 Mo. App. 56. Promissory notes and shares in an incorporated company, and, in some cases, money and bank-notes, have been held within it; see 2 Pars. Contr. 830; and so have a bond and mortgage; 55 N. J. Law 168; 29 Mo. App. 206; the term "merchandise" as used in the revised statutes of the United States includes goods, wares, and chattels of every descrip- tion capable of being imported; R. S. § 2766. See 109 Mo. 78; GOODS AND CHATTELS.

CHANDISEmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

Meum est promittere, non dimittere. It is mine to promise, not to discharge. 2 Rolle 39. Minatur innocentibus qui parcit nocentibus. He threatens the innocent who spares the guilty. 4 Co. 45. Minima pæna corporalis est major qualibet pecu- niaria. The smallest bodily punishment is greater than any pecuniary one. 2 Inst. 220. Minime mutanda sunt quæ certam habuerunt in terpretationem. Things which have had a certain interpretation are to be altered as little as possible. Co. Litt. 365. Minimum est nihilo proximum. The least is next to nothing. Bacon, Arg. Low's Case of Tenures. Minor ante tempus agere non potest in casu pro- prietatis, nec etiam convenire. A minor before majority cannot act in a case of property, nor even agree. 2 Inst. 291. Minor jurare non potest. A minor cannot make oath. Co. Litt. 172 b. An infant cannot be sworn on a jury. Littleton 280. Minor minorem custodire non debet; alios enim præsumitur male regere qui seipsum regere nescit. A minor ought not be guardian of a minor, for he is presumed to govern others ill who does not know how to govern himself. Co. Litt. 88. Minor non tenetur respondere durante minori ætati; nisi in causa dotis, propter favorem. A minor is not bound to answer during his minority, except as a matter of favor in a cause of dower. 8 Bulstr. 148. Minor, qui infra ætatem 12 annorum fuerit, utlagari non potest nec extra legem poni, quia ante talem ætatem, non est sub lege aliqua, nec in de- cenna. A minor who is under twelve years of age cannot be outlawed, nor placed without the las because before such age he is not under any lawa nor in a decennary. Co. Litt. 128. Minor 17 annis non admittitur fore executorem, A minor under seventeen years of age is not ad- mitted to be an executor. 6 Co. 67. Minus solvit, qui tardius solvit; nam et tempore minus solvitur. He does not pay who pays too late; for; from the delay, he is judged not to pay. Dig. 50. 16. 12. 1. Misera est servitus, ubi jus est vagum aut incer- tum. It is a miserable slavery where the law is vague or uncertain. 4 Inst. 246; Johns. 477;11 Pet. 236; Broom, Max. 150. Mitius imperanti melius paretur. The more mildly one commands, the better is he obeyed. I Inst. 24. Mobilia non habent situm. Movables have no situs. 4 Johns. Ch. 472. Mobilia personam sequuntur, immobilia situm. Movable things follow the person immovable, their locality. Story, Confl. L., 3d ed. 658; 166 U.8 185; 165 id. 194; 49 La. Ann. 43. Mobilia sequuntur personam. Movables foliow the person. Story, Coi 1. L., 3d ed, 638, 639; Broom Max. 522; 87 Ky. 685; 16 L. R. A. 57. See TAL Modica circumstantia facti jus mutat. A smal circumstance attending an act may change the law. Modus de non decimando non valet. A modus (prescription) not to pay tithes is void. Lofft in; Cro. Eliz. 511; 2 Sharsw. Bla. Com. 31. Modus et conventio vincunt legem. The form of agreement and the convention of the parties over- rule the iaw. 13 Pick. 491; Broom, Max. 689 et seq; 2 Co. 73: 22 N. Y. 252. Modus legem dat donctioni. The manner gives law to a gift. Co. Litt. 19 a: Broom, Max. 459. Moneta est justum medium et mensura rerum commutabilium, nam per medium s.onetæ fit em- nium rerum conveniens, et justa æstimatio. Money is the just medium and measure of all exchanges be things, for by the medium of money a convenient and just estimation of all things is made. See 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 922; Bart. Max. 222. Monetandi jus comprehenditur in regalibus quæ nunquam a regio sceptro abdicantur. The right of coining is comprehended amongst those rights of royalty which are never relinquished by the kingly sceptre. Dav, 18. Mora reprobatur in lege. Delay is disapproved of in law. Jenk. Cent. 51. Mors dicitur ultimum supplicium. Death is denominated the extreme penalty. 8 Inst. 212. Mors omnia solvit. Death dissolves all things. Mortis momentum est ultimum vita momentum. The last moment of life is the moment of death. 4 Bradf. 245, 250. Mortuus exitus non est exitus. To be dead-born is not to be born. Co. Litt. 29. See 2 Paige 85; Domat, liv. prél. t. 2. s. 1, n. 4, 6. Mos retinendus est fidelissimæ vetustatis. A cus tom of the truest antiquity is to be retained. 4 Co. 78. Mulcta damnum famæ non irrogat. A fine does not impose a loss of reputation. Code, 1.54; Cal vinus, Lex. Multa conceduntur per obliquum quæ non conce duntur de directo. Many things are conceded in directly which are not allowed directly. 6 Co. 47. Multa fidem promissa levant. Many promiset lessen confidence. 11 Cush. 350. Multa ignoramus quæ nobis non laterent si vet erum lectio nobis fuit familiaris. We are ignorant of many things which would not be hidden from us if the reading of old authors were familiar to us. 10 Co. 73. Multa in jure communi contra rationem dispu tandi pro communi utilitate introducta sunt. Many things have been introduced into the common law, with a view to the public good, which are inconsist ent with sound reason. Co. Litt. 70: Broom, Max. 158; 2 Co. 75. See 3 Term 146; 7 id. 252. Multa m

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