## Facts

- Nancy Stillman owned a farm that was subject to foreclosure.
- A tenant rented the farm and planted soybeans.
- The farm was sold at a foreclosure sale, and the Fletchers purchased the real estate.
- At the time of the foreclosure sale, the soybean crop was mature but had not been harvested and remained standing on the land.
- After the sale, the crop was harvested and sold, creating proceeds that included a “landlord’s share.”
- The Fletchers sued, claiming that as foreclosure purchasers they were entitled to the landlord’s share of the crop-sale proceeds.
- Stillman argued that once the crop matured it no longer depended on the soil and was therefore “constructively severed,” so it did not pass with the land at foreclosure.
- The trial court ruled in favor of the Fletchers, and Stillman appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the purchasers of farmland at a foreclosure sale acquire the landlord’s interest in a mature but unharvested crop standing on the land at the time of sale.
2. Whether Missouri law treats crop maturity as “constructive severance” that converts a standing crop into personal property that does not pass with the real estate at foreclosure.

## Decision

- The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment for the Fletchers.
- The court held that the mature but unharvested soybeans were still part of the realty at the time of the foreclosure sale.
- The court rejected Stillman’s argument that maturity alone constructively severed the crop from the land.
- Because the crop had not been severed (physically or by a prior effective legal separation of the crop interest), the landlord’s share of the crop proceeds passed to the Fletchers with the land.

## Legal Principles

- In Missouri, a growing crop remains part of the real estate until it is actually severed or has been effectively separated from the land by a prior legal transaction recognizing it as personal property.
- The maturity of a crop, by itself, does not constitute constructive severance.
- When farmland is sold at foreclosure with a standing, unharvested crop on it, the purchaser takes the associated landlord’s interest in the crop (including the landlord’s share of proceeds) unless that crop interest was previously separated from the real estate by a valid arrangement.

## Conclusion

Fletcher v. Stillman holds that a mature but unharvested crop standing on foreclosed farmland does not become personal property merely because it is mature; absent prior severance or other effective separation, the foreclosure purchaser takes the landlord’s interest in the crop and is entitled to the landlord’s share of the crop-sale proceeds.


Fletcher v. Stillman, 934 S.W.2d 597 (1996)