Allen v. Crutcher

216 S.W. 236, 1919 Tex. App. LEXIS 1111
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 28, 1919
DocketNo. 9141.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 216 S.W. 236 (Allen v. Crutcher) 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
Allen v. Crutcher, 216 S.W. 236, 1919 Tex. App. LEXIS 1111 (Tex. Ct. App. 1919).

Opinion

BUCK, J.

J. C. Gray filed suit August 18, 1917, in the form of trespass to try title, against S¡ W. Crutcher and wife, Mattie Della Crutcher, alleging that theretofore, on July 2, 1917, plaintiff was lawfully seized and possessed of section No. 63, block 22, original survey Texas & Pacific Railway Company, containing 636 acres, in Nolan county, Tex.; that on said date defendants unlawfully entered in and upon said premises, and ejected the plaintiff therefrom, etc.

Defendants, S. W. Crutcher and wife, filed their answer March 30, 1918, in which S. W. Crutcher disclaimed any claim to title in and to said land for himself, and alleged that Mrs. Mattie D. Crutcher owned and held *237 said land in fee simple as her own individual property. Mrs. Crutcher pleaded not guilty. In another count she pleaded in the way of cross-action for relief, alleging that plaintiff was claiming title under a sheriff’s deed to one Mrs. A. A. Allen, purporting to convey said section of land for a recited consideration of $250, and claiming that 'said land was owned and held by. S. W. Crutcher under a recorded deed. Mrs. Crutcheii further pleaded that her husband had no title to said land, and that the purported sheriff’s deed to the plaintiff conveyed no title, yet it cast a cloud on defendant’s title to the land. Wherefore she prayed that she have a judgment canceling the sheriff’s deed to Mrs. Allen, and the deed from Mrs. Allen to the plaintiff Cray, and to remove cloud.

The children of Mrs. Crutcher by a former marriage, to wit, E. W. Pierce, Mrs. Mattie M. Trammell, joined pro forma by her husband, Thomas Trammell, and Annie B. Rogers, joined pro forma by her husband, M. N. Rogers, intervened, alleging that they and the defendant Mrs. Mattie D. Crutcher were the owners in fee simple of said land; that the land was purchased with funds derived from the estate of the father of in-terveners and their mother; that, after the mother’s marriage with S. W. Crutcher, Mrs. Crutcher was appointed guardian of the estate, consisting of a tract of land in Robertson county, Tex., and that she sold said land in Robertson county, and collected other sums of money belonging to said estate, and purchased the section of land in question, talcing the title thereto in the name of S. W. Crutcher; that since said purchase the defendants, S. W. Crutcher and Mattie D. Crutcher, at all times recognized the right of the interveners in and to said land, and that the interveners are the owners of an undivided two-thirds interest in said section, and have the right to an immediate partition of said land. Wherefore interveners prayed for a cancellation of the deed under which l>laintiff asserted title, and for a judgment in their favor granting the relief prayed for, and for writ of partition.

Other pleadings were filed by the defendants Crutcher and by plaintiff and by the interveners, but it will not be necessary to mention them further at this time, except to state that Mrs. Allen filed her petition of intervention, alleging that she had purchased the land in question from plaintiff, J. C. Gray, and ashing that she be permitted to intervene in this suit as party plaintiff, which was permitted by the court.

The cause was submitted to a jury upon special issues, and a judgment was rendered against plaintiff, Mrs. A. A. Allen, from which she has appealed.

The evidence shows that on September 28, 1891, the land in controversy was conveyed to S. W. Crutcher by J. A. Fuller for a recited consideration of $500 in cash, and the assumption of three vendor’s lien notes of $640 each; that on April 1, 1914, "S. W. Crutcher executed a deed to the land to his wife, Mrs. Mattie D. Crutcher, for a recited consideration of $5,000 paid by grantee, and in consideration of the love and affection of the grantor for the grantee. It is further recited in said deed that said $5,000 was in full payment of the sum of $2,000, with accrued interest, loaned by grantee to grantor out of her own separate estate, “about 25 years ago, and this being the first and only payment of said indebtedness by me, the said S. W. Crutcher, and she, the said Mattie D. Crutcher, hereby agreed to accept this deed of conveyance and of the land herein described in full and final payment and liquidation of the above-mentioned debt.”

It is in evidence, further, that on March 27, 1916, Mrs. A. A. Allen recovered in the district court of Nolan county a judgment against S. W. Crutcher and others, the judgment being upon a note in favor of Mrs. Allen, with interest and attorney’s fees, and being in the sum of $2,254.90; that on June 8, 1916, the land in question was levied upon, under execution, to satisfy this judgment, •and was on July 4, 1916, sold to Mrs. A. A. Allen for the sum of $250. A deed by the sheriff to Mrs. Allen was .executed and delivered the same day. On June 21, 1917, Mrs. Allen conveyed the land to J. C. Gray, for the recited consideration of $1,500 paid, and on February 1, 1918, Gray reconveyed the land to Mrs. Allen for the same recited consideration, plaintiff claiming title to be in her under the sheriff’s deed aforesaid.

It is further in evidence that Mrs. Crutch-. er qualified as the guardian of the estate of her minor children by her first marriage, and later sold the land in Robertson county belonging to the estate of said minors, and also certain property in McLennan county belonging to Mrs. Crutcher’s separate estate; that the money derived therefrom was turned over to S. W. Crutcher, and that he paid some, if not all, of the notes due on the land out of the money derived from the sale of the Robertson county land, and used the funds from the sale of the McLennan county land to make the first payment on the section in controversy, as well as to apply on subsequent payments. Defendant Mrs. Mattie D. Crutch-er and the interveners mentioned claimed title by reason of an alleged resulting trust arising out of the use of funds derived from the separate estate of Mrs. Crutcher and the estate of the children in the payment of the purchase price of the section of land in controversy.

[1] Appellant has 31 assignments of error, numbering them from 1 to 16, inclusive, and then beginning with the seventh and ending with the twenty-fourth. Thus the brief contains two assignments numbered 7 and twj *238 numbered 8, etc. This practice is in violation of rule 29 prepared by the Supreme Court (142 S. W. xiii) for the guidance of Courts of Civil Appeals and attorneys practicing therein, which rule, in part, provides “that the assignments as presented in the brief shall be numbered from the first to the last in their consecutive order.”

[2] Appellee has filed a motion to dismiss the appeal for the averred reason that the appellant failed to except to the order of the court overruling her motion for a new trial, and that, as the trial below was before a jury, a motion for a new trial was and is requisite to an appeal. An examination of the transcript discloses that no exception was taken by plaintiff below to the overruling of plaintiff’s motion for judgment or to the granting of defendant’s motion for judgment. The record further discloses that upon the overruling of the plaintiff’s motion for a new trial “the plaintiff then and there in open court gave notice of appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals for the Second Supreme Judicial District at Ft.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
216 S.W. 236, 1919 Tex. App. LEXIS 1111, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/allen-v-crutcher-texapp-1919.