American Contract Law for a Global Age, 2017a

treated the sale of clay as a transaction “in goods.” “Goods” are defined in UCC § 2-
105 as
all things (including specially manufactured goods) which are movable
at the time of identification to the contract for sale other than the money
in which the price is to be paid, investment securities (Article 8) and
things in action. “Goods” also includes the unborn young of animals and
growing crops and other identified things attached to realty as described
in the section on goods to be severed from realty (section 2-107).
The term “movable” is somewhat elusive in that virtually anything is movable, even
Blackacre, “in the sense that much of the dirt, gravel, water, and minerals that
comprise the ‘things’ called Blackacre can be transported to another location.”
ROBERT J. NORDSTROM, HANDBOOK OF THE LAW OF SALES § 22, at 45 (1970). However,
movable is modified by “at the time of identification,” and there is further reference
to growing crops which can be severed. Considered as a whole, “the words of section
2-105 lose much of their obscurity. The drafters were concerned with items of tangible
property which were portable at the time they were set aside for their transfer, items
which normally flow in commerce.” Id. at 46. 2
Indicative of the variety of items which may be classified as goods within the
meaning of section 2-105 are hoghouses, electricity, mobile homes, growing crops,
tomato seeds, and modular homes. See Thompson Farms, Inc. v. Corno Feed Products,
366 N.E.2d 3 (Ind. Ct. App. 1977); Helvey v. Wabash County REMC, 176, 278 N.E.2d
608 (Ind. Ct. App. 1972); Jones v. Abriani, 350 N.E.2d 635 (Ind. Ct. App. 1976);
Sebasty v. Perschke, 404 N.E.2d 1200 (Ind. Ct. App. 1980); Stumler v. Ferry-Morse
Seed Co., 644 F.2d 667 (7th Cir. 1981); Stephenson v. Frazier, 399 N.E.2d 794 (Ind.
Ct. App. 1980). None of these seem similar to the sale of several feet of clay soil lying
four feet beneath the surface of the earth.
There is another section which should be read with § 2-105, to-wit, § 2-107.
Section 2-107 provides in part:
(1) A contract for the sale of timber, minerals or the like or a structure
or its materials to be removed from realty is a contract for the sale of
goods within this Article if they are to be severed by the seller but until
severance a purported present sale thereof which is not effective as a
transfer of an interest in land is effective only as a contract to sell.
(2) A contract for the sale apart from the land of growing crops or other
things attached to realty and capable of severance without material
harm thereto but not described in subsection (1) is a contract for the sale
2 [By the Court:] The comment to 2-105, explains that growing crops are goods because “they are
frequently intended for sale.”
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UNIT 10: UCC SCOPE AND FORMATION 179