Anderson v. Barnwell

52 S.W.2d 96, 1932 Tex. App. LEXIS 689
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 19, 1932
DocketNo. 4191.
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 52 S.W.2d 96 (Anderson v. Barnwell) 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
Anderson v. Barnwell, 52 S.W.2d 96, 1932 Tex. App. LEXIS 689 (Tex. Ct. App. 1932).

Opinion

LEVY, J.

(after stating the case as above).

There is duly and fully presented for decision the points in view, in effect, that those .defendants claiming a right and interest to oil, by lease and deed, in the 5<Pacre tract may not in the circumstances proven take or obtain the right or legal estate in the oil interests in the land as against the plaintiffs having a recorded legal title either (1) as purchasers of the property without notice for value, or (2) by estoppel. The defendant Donald W. Moore and like named defendants claim interest and rights, not in the surface, hut in the oil and minerals under the 50-acre tract, and trace their interests and rights to the oil and minerals through the lease and conveyance from R. O. Barnwell on January 5, 1931, and back to the conveyance of February 27, 1925, which was duly recorded, from George Anderson and Ella. Anderson to the Rembert National Bank. The findings of the jury must be taken, as we conclude, as establishing as a fact that the conveyance by George Anderson and Ella Anderson of the 50-acre tract made on February 27, 1925, to the Rembert National Bank was not) an outright sale, was intended as a mortgage, and that R. O. Barnwell, who subsequently acquired the land by deed from the bank, had actual notice or knowledge of the prior fact affecting the transaction between the bank arid the An-dersons. There is no doubt, as the legal consequence of such findings of the jury, that both of the conveyances mentioned, to the bank and to R. 0. Barnwell, would be rendered invalid and ineffectual to operate as a conveyance of the land as between the said parties; the land being, as affirmatively proven, a part of the established and existing homestead tract of George and Ella Anderson. Article 16, § 50, Constitution; Inge v. Cain, 65 Tex. 75; Hardie & Co. v. Campbell, 63 Tex. 292; Musick v. O’Brien (Tex. Civ. App.) 102 S. W. 458, and other cases; Speer on Marital Rights, § 480. The plea of homestead would conclusively prevail over the conveyance to R. C. Barnwell, because he took the land, as established, with notice or knowledge concerning the prior fact affecting the transaction between the bank and the Andersons. Forbes v. Thomas (Tex. Civ. App.) 51 S. W. 1097; Bludworth v. Dudley (Tex. Civ. App.) 173 S. W. 561; and other cases. And, as further conclusively established by the evidence, George Anderson and Ella Anderson on September 10, 1930, executed a mineral lease to B. B. Seay covering the 50-acre tract, and on September 27, 1930, executed a mineral deed to Palmer Bradley to an undivided interest in oil under land covering a part of the 50-acre tract. These two instruments were . duly filed for record in the county clerk’s office on September 11, 1930-, and September 27, 1930, respectively. It was thereafter and of date January 5, 1931, that both the mineral lease and the mineral deed were executed by R. C. Barnwell to Donald W. Moore and the other defendants. In virtue of the recording acts, these prior recorded conveyances would prevail because the defendants would be legally chargeable with constructive notice, and they would be cut off from asserting any rights against the plaintiffs, having a valid legal title. Articles 6627, 6646, R. S.; Gaston & Thomas v. Dashiell, 55 Tex. 508; Copelin v. Shuler (Tex. Sup.) 6 S. W. 668; and other cases; 39 Cyc. pp. 1648-1651; 46 C. J. § 46, p. 550; 27 R. C. L. § 432, p. 669; 2 Pomeroy, Eq. Jur. (4 Ed.) §§ 604, 655.

The intention of the recording acts is to compel every person receiving conveyances of real property to place such an instrument of record, not only that he may thereby protect his own rights, but also those of all others who may afterwards seek to acquire an interest in the same property. In this manner a person about to deal with respect to a tract of land may be able to discover, or find the means of discovering, as was designed the public deed records should afford, every existing and outstanding title or interest in it which could affect the rights of a bona fide purchaser. The law intends to and does favor the recorded title, and any conveyance which is duly recorded must thereby obtain all the benefits which depend upon or flow from the fact of registration. Under the settled rules generally applicable to such situations, Donald AV. Moore and the other defendants may predicate the right to take or obtain a legal estate or hold the oil interest claimed freed from the legal rights of George and Ella Anderson as well as the other plaintiffs in the case only that they acquired their rights without notice of the duly registered interests or claims of the plaintiffs in the same property. This involves, not a question of title, but a question of notice. It is a general rule most clearly established that a person who acquired a legal or equitable interest in property, even for a valuable consideration, *102 but with notice that the same property is already affected by a legal or equitable claim in favor of another, does not take the property freed from the claim or interest of such other person. By affirmative finding of the jury, Mr. Donald W. Moore at the time of the agreement of the lease by E. H. Brawley was personally informed by Mr. Brawley of the fact of the execution by George Anderson and Ella Anderson to B. P. Seay of the mineral lease. Thus Mr. Moore, as a fact, had information tending to show the existence of the fact of a prior right in Mr. Seay in conflict with the interest he was seeking to obtain. And as to all the defendants the circumstance appears sufficient at least to excite inquiry that George Anderson and .Ella Anderson were in long continuous actual possession of the premises, as though no sale had been made since the deed in 1925 to the Rembert National Bank. As observed in Davis v. Cox (Tex. Civ. App.) 176 S. W. 931, 932, as applicable to a grantor remaining in possession, “he knew that in Texas when a sale of land is made, the vendee usually does not permit the vendor to remain in possession as though no sale had been made for nearly four years.”

The only exception relied upon as relieving the effect of George Anderson and wife’s maintaining the long continuous actual occupancy of the land for six years after having executed the conveyance to the Rembert National Bank, and which was put of record, is the case of Eylar v. Eylar, 60 Tex. 315, and the other cases following it. The defendants in the present case were exhibited and read the deed from George and Ella Anderson to the Rembert National Bank, and the certified abstract showing the deed, and relied upon this recorded deed in the purchase of the estate in the land. They did not make personal examination of the deed record. It is believed that constructive notice arising by the long actual continued occupancy of the land by George Anderson and wife from the date of their conveyance to the Rembert National Bank in 1925 including the date of conveyances to Donald W. Moore by R. C. Barnwell on January 5, 1931, being about six years, was a circumstance inconsistent with possession merely by sufferance and sufficient to put the purchaser on inquiry of the rights of George Anderson and wife; that the inquiry if prosecuted sufficiently would have disclosed the rights of George Anderson and the other plaintiffs, their conveyances having been previously put of record. Therefore constructive notice plays the most important part in the situation shown by the facts. In the case of Eylar v. Eylar, supra, it was held that possession merely put on inquiry and that inquiry is prosecuted sufficiently when the purchaser examines the records and finds a deed from the party in possession. Although in the Eylar Case J. F.

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Bluebook (online)
52 S.W.2d 96, 1932 Tex. App. LEXIS 689, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anderson-v-barnwell-texapp-1932.