Alderete v. First Real Estate & Investment Co.

247 S.W. 620
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 4, 1923
DocketNo. 1385.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 247 S.W. 620 (Alderete v. First Real Estate & Investment Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alderete v. First Real Estate & Investment Co., 247 S.W. 620 (Tex. Ct. App. 1923).

Opinion

WALTHALL, J.

This is an action in trespass to try title brought by appellee, First Beal Estate & Investment Company, a corporation, against F. G. Alderete, individually and as administrator of the estate of Isaac Alderete, deceased, Mrs. Rebecca J. Ealvey, individually and as survivor in community of the community estate of herself and her deceased husband, T. A. Falvey, and C. L. Vowell, Joe Dunn, and Joe Zelman, to recover title and possession of the lands described in the petition by metes and bounds and alleged to be a part of survey No. 190 in the Ysleta town grant, in El Paso county.

In order to understand some of the evidence and the accompanying maps, we state more fully the description of the' land as found in the petition. It is alleged that the tract of land in controversy contains 11.53 acres, described as:

“Beginning at a point south 46° 45' east 10.3 varas from an iron pipe in the southerly line of the county road running between El Paso and Ysleta, and south 46° 45' east 104 varas from a telegraph pole marked ‘A-327’; thence south 46° 45' east 53.9 varas along the southerly line of said county road to the north or northwesterly corner of land set aside to N. M. Madrid by a judgment in the case above referred to (Madrid v. Manuella Luna de Apodaca); thence south 34° 1,220.1 varas to the bank of the Bio Grande river; thence up the said bank 88° 55' west 63.3 varas; thence north 34° east 1,266.4 varas to the place of beginning, being the same land conveyed by warranty deed by Joe Dunn, to E. E. Elias, dated February 24, 1913 (giving the book and page where recorded) and by Elias and wife to Joe Zelman, by deed dated November 8, 1913 (stating the book and page where recorded) and by Joe Zelman conveyed by warranty deed dated November 24, 1913, to H. E. Cornwall (stating book and page of recorcf) said records referred to and made a part hereof.”

Appellee also claimed prescriptive title in itself under the 3, 5, and 10 years’ statutes of limitations.

Appellee sued Joe Dunn and Joe Zelman as warrantors of the title held by it, alleging that it holds title from Joe Dunn through AY. B. Wagoner to E. E. Elias, and from Elias to it, and that it holds title from Joe Zelman through H. E. Cornwall to it;, and further alleging that if it should be unable to maintain its cause of action, and should Alderete, Mrs. Falvey, and Vowell recover the said land, in that event Joe Dunn and Joe Zelman have failed to keep the covenants recited in their deeds, and in that event it sues Dunn and Zelman for its damages sustained, and also sues to recover the value of permanent and valuable improvements alleged to have been made in good faith. The case was originally filed in the Thirty-Fourth district court but later duly transferred to the Sixty-Fifth district court.

Appellants Alderete, individually, and as executor of the estate of Isaac Alderete, deceased, Mrs. Rebecca J. Falvey, individually, and as survivor in community of the estate of T. A. Falvey, ■ deceased, and C. L. Vowell answered by pleas of general demurrer, not guilty, general denial, and by cross-action severally sot up title in themselves to the land in controversy, alleging same to be parts and parcels of survey No. 191 in the Ysleta town grant, and not of survey No. 190, as alleged by appellee.

Joe Dunn answered by general demurrer and general denial. Joe Zelman answered by general demurrer and general denial, and set up an action against Joe Dunn as war-rantor of title, and prayed judgment over against said Dunn in the event judgment should be against him. Zelman also pleaded the 4 years’ statute of limitations in answer to plaintiff’s petition.

The case was tried with a jury and submitted upon special issues, and, on the answers returned, judgment was rendered that appellee take nothing for its damages against defendants; that appellee take nothing in its suit on the warranty against Dunn and Zelman; that appellee recover of Alderete, individually, and as said administrator, and recover of Mrs. Falvey, individually, and as survivor of said community estate, and recover of O. L. Vowell, the land in controversy and described above; and that appel-lee recover of all defendants sued individually and.in the capacities sued, all costs, except that as noted.

Alderete and Mrs Falvey, individually, and in their said representative capacities, and Vowell filed a motion for new trial, which was by the court overruled, and notice of appeal duly given.

Appellee deraigns title from the corporation of the town of Ysleta and through Jose Luna, and later through all of the heirs of Jose Luna and Pantaleona Luna conveying to Manuella Luna, widow of Francisco Yri-gollen, under whom appellee holds title. It is insisted by appellant that it was reversible error to admit in evidence over objection the deed from “Mrs. Pantaleona Luna,” as being irrelevant and immaterial and not sufficient to pass the title, as the deed purports to be the deed of a married woman and in which the husband did not join, there being no acknowledgment thereof taken separate and apart from her husband. The certificate of the officer taking the acknowledgment of “Mrs. Pantaleona Luna” does not show the facts prescribed by articles 1114, 3700, and 6805, R. S., for taking the acknowledgment of a married woman. The conveyance itself purports to be a deed from Pantaleona Luna to Francisco Yrigollen conveying the land *622 in controversy, and, after reciting the calls by metes and bounds, proceeds: “Said land having been deeded by the town of Ysleta to Jose Telles, by the latter to Jose Runa, and by him to his wife, Pantaleona Luna.” The deed was executed- February 21, 1903, and duly recorded in March, 1905. There is nothing in the record to show that when the deed was executed and the acknowledgment taken Jose Luna was then alive or that Pan-taleona Luna was then a married woman, other than the form of acknowledgment as above. But the record further shows a later conveyance of the land in 1907, from a number of grantors joining in a deed conveying to Manuella Luna, and reciting the grantors to be the only surviving heirs at law of Josp Lun.a and Pantaleona Luna. The deed to Manuella Luna is a link in appellee’s title. It was agreed by all parties that the recital in the' deed of heirship and in a former judgment then in evidence ar§ prima facie evidence that same is true, subject to contradiction, and no contradictory evidence was adduced. The facts found in the record do not show reversible error by reason of the admission in evidence of the deed of Panta-leona Luna to Francisco Yrigollen, because such deed was immaterial in view of the subsequent deed by the heirs.

By the second and third propositions error is asserted in the failure of the court to define the word “privity” as used by the court in its charge in submitting to the jury the issue of peaceable and adverse possession of appellee, under its plea of the statute of limitations of 10 years. The court instructed the jury as to peaceable possession, and adverse possession, in the verbiage of the statute. Then proceeding said:

“Peaceable and adverse possession need not b« continued in the same person, but when held by different persons successively there must be a privity of estate between them.”

The court did not anywhere in the charge define the word “privity” as used in the above charge. The appellant submitted a special charge defining the word “privity” which the court refused to give.

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Bluebook (online)
247 S.W. 620, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alderete-v-first-real-estate-investment-co-texapp-1923.