Fruits

FRUITS. - The juridical concept of fruits is much broader than the natural and common concept. Juridically, fruits are everything that a thing produces naturally or by virtue of human activity.

I. IN CIVIL LAW

There are two categories of fruits: natural fruits, those that come directly from the thing, whether or not human labor contributes, such as agricultural produce, the offspring of animals, the products of woods and mines; civil fruits, those obtained from the thing as consideration for the enjoyment that others have of it, such as interest on capital, emphyteutic rents, revenues and leases (Italian Civil Code, art. 820).

Fruits may be found in different legal situations: still united to the thing that produced them (e.g., wool on sheep), they are called pending; detached from the thing by natural force (apples from the tree) and by human action (wool cut from sheep), they are called separated; detached naturally and having passed into someone's possession, they are called perceived. If the detachment occurs through human action, there is simultaneously separation and perception. Percipiendi are those fruits that could have been gathered and in fact were not gathered. Depending then on whether or not they currently exist in nature, there are existing fruits (extantes), and consumed fruits (consumpti).

Fruits constitute a category of accessory goods with respect to the principal thing that produces them. Before separation, they form part of the thing itself and follow its legal condition. One may nevertheless dispose of them as a future thing (art. 820). Once separated they acquire commercial value on their own account.

Fruits normally belong to the owner of the thing that produced them; they may however also belong to others, e.g., to the emphyteuta, to the usuary, to the usufructuary, to the possessor in good faith who holds the thing without being its owner, to the apparent heir, etc. (art. 821).

The juridical fact that ordinarily determines the acquisition of natural fruits is separation. The acquisition of civil fruits, on the other hand, is determined by the fact of daily accrual; these are acquired, that is, day by day, in proportion to the duration of the right (art. 821).

Thus the emphyteuta, who has over the fruits of the estate the same rights as the owner, acquires those fruits by separation

(art. 959); thus the usuary and the usufructuary acquire civil fruits on the basis of daily accrual, and natural fruits by separation, without need of perception: at the end therefore of the usufruct and of the use, in returning the thing they may retain for themselves all natural fruits separated even if not yet perceived. Both kinds belong to them for the duration of their right. If therefore the beginning and the end of the usufruct or of the use should occur during the production period, so that owner and usufructuary, or usuary, should succeed one another in the enjoyment of the thing, the whole of the fruits must be divided between the one and the other in proportion to the duration of the respective right within that same period (arts. 984, 1020); v. uso; usufrutto.

The possessor in good faith, on the other hand, who holds the thing without being its owner, makes his own the natural and civil fruits, respectively separated and accrued, only up to the day on which he is judicially requested by the owner to return the thing: from the moment of the judicial demand he must return to the owner not only the fruits perceived, but also the percipiendi that through his negligence he had neglected to perceive. The possessor in bad faith is liable for the fruits perceived and percipiendi even before the judicial demand (art. 1148); v. POSSESSO; POSSESSORE DI BUONA FEDE.

The same principles, concerning the acquisition of fruits by the possessor in good faith, must also be applied to the apparent heir who is a possessor in good faith of inherited property (art. 535).

For the acquisition and division of dotal fruits in the event of dissolution of marriage, special rules are laid down (arts. 198-99).

II. IN CANON LAW

Canon law shares with civil law, receiving them from the common source of Roman law, the doctrinal principles concerning things and the fruits of things, and adopts, with the same effects, the same norms of civil law, provided these do not conflict with divine law and do not concern specific situations directly regulated by divine law itself (cann. 1529, 1508), as occurs, for example, with the fruits of a benefice, of pious foundations and of the dowry of religious women.

The fruits of a benefice belong to the beneficiary from the moment of taking possession. He enjoys and disposes of them freely, as of full right, only within the limits of what is necessary for his honest and decorous sustenance, there remaining the obligation to devote the surplus to the poor or to pious causes (cann. 1472-73). Unlike the usufructuary, he acquires day by day, pro rata temporis, not only civil fruits but also natural ones, independently of separation. On the basis of this principle the fruits are to be calculated and divided, after deducting liabilities, in the case of succession to the benefice title (cann. 1480).

The fruits of a vacant benefice, after deducting expenses and other possible liabilities, are to be devoted half to increasing the benefice's endowment and the other half to the church or chapel in which the benefice was erected (cann. 1481).

Those who lose the fruits of a benefice are: those excommunicated post sententiam (cann. 2266), those who refuse to make the required profession of faith (cann. 2403), those who fail to fulfill the obligation of residence (cann. 2381 n. 1, 2168 § 1, 2170, 2172), those suspended from the benefice (cann. 2280 § 2) and simoniacs (cann. 729, n. 2); v. BENEFICIO.

The distribution of the fruits of a pious foundation must be strictly regulated by the bishop in the foundation's statutes (cann. 1545); v. FONDAZIONE PIA.

The fruits of the dowry of religious women must be administered by the superior of the monastery or institute, under the supervision of the Ordinary of the place (cann. 550). The fruits already accrued remain with the monastery or institute if the religious woman leaves it forever. In the case of transfer to another institute, the latter will enjoy the fruits of the dowry from the beginning of the new novitiate (cann. 551).

Zaccaria da San Mauro