Anderson v. Schaefer

275 S.W. 300, 1925 Tex. App. LEXIS 734
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 10, 1925
DocketNo. 2515.
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 275 S.W. 300 (Anderson v. Schaefer) 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. Schaefer, 275 S.W. 300, 1925 Tex. App. LEXIS 734 (Tex. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

JACKSON, J.

This suit was instituted in the district court of Archer county, and by agreement of the parties transferred to the district court of Wichita County, Tex., for trial.

J. E. Anderson, appellant, sued P. J. Shaefer and Mrs. M. B. Darnell, a widow, in trespass to try title to the land described as follows: A survey of 127.5 acres made for J. E. Anderson by virtue of the statute providing for the sale of unsurveyed school land, with metes and bounds as follows:

Beginning at a point at center of road, 6 varas south of the southwest fence corner of Green Reynolds survey; thence north along west fence of Green 'Reynolds survey, crossing corner of fence to west at 736 varas, a distance of 847 varas for southeast corner of the Day Land & Cattle Company survey, being a point on Green Reynolds west fence line, and 1108 varas south of a point in center of east and west road, 11.5 varas north of Green Reynolds northwest fence corner; thence west with Day Land & Cattle Company survey’s south boundary, 850 'varas to southwest corner Day Land & Cattle Company survey; thence south 847 varas to the center of the east and west road on north line of Matthew Doyle survey No. 16; thence east along north line M. Doyle survey No. 16, passing road intersection at 152.5 varas, and crossing railroad 694.7 varas, a distance of 850 varas, to the place of beginning.

Mrs. M. B. Darnell disclaimed, and P. J. Schaefer, appellee, answered by general demurrer and a plea of not guilty.

It was agreed that appellant had been awarded the land in controversy as public school land by the commissioner of the general land office of the state of Texas, on or about March 18, 192Q, and has title to said land if it was vacant when awarded, and that appellee has title to the northern part of the Harvey Cox survey, and claims the land in controversy was not vacant, but is a part of the portion of the Harvey Cox survey . owned by him.

The case resolved itself into a boundary suit, and was tried before the court without a jury, and at the close of the testimony the court rendered judgment against appellant, and that appellee' be quieted as against him in his title for costs, etc.

There are no findings of fact or conclusions of law in the record.

Appellant assails the action of the trial court in rendering judgment against him- by four assignments of error; all of which, in .effect, are that, because the Harvey Cox survey has no marked corners or'lines, and is one of a block of surveys made by Dennis Corwin on September 21, 1874, it should be located by course and distance from the Fitzgerald survey on the west, and the calls in the field notes of. the Harvey Cox survey for the unmarked lines and corners of adjoining surveys should be disregarded because the Corwin survey was an office survey, and its calls for the lines and corners of the adjacent surveys were made by mistake or conjecture, and by locating the Harvey Cox survey by course and distance from the northeast corner of the Fitzgerald survey on the west, the land sued for by appellant is no part of the Harvey Cox survey, and is vacant land.

Appellees’ contention is that the Harvey Cox should be located by its calls for the lines and corners of surveys adjoining it on the north and east, made and located upon *301 the ground before the survey of the Corwin; block, and when so located there is no vacancy.

Below is a plat on which the land in controversy is designated D, and, while not drawn to an absolute scale,' will assist in understanding the facts upon 'which the respective contentions are based:

The record does not disclose when or by whom the Shaw survey, nor the H. & T. C. Railway Company lands were made, but these lands were -all located prior to the Corwin surveys.

William Hudson, in 1854, located Fitzgerald No. 1, Neil No. 2, Fanning No. 3, the Scott surveys Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, and the Cherokee county school, land in 1856. In 1S71 E. Boen surveyed the J. R. McDowell, and in 1S72 the Reynolds. In 1874 Dennis Corwin located surveys Nos. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, which are included on the plat within the broken lines made of dots and dashes. The southwest corner of the Fitzgerald, designated A, the northeast corner of Scott No. 4, and the northwest corner of Scott No. 5, which is a common corner designated B, and the southwest corner of Scott No. 8, designated C, are original corners made by Hudson in 1854, and can still be identified on the ground, but no other line or corner in any adjacent purveys can be located except by course and distance from these identified positions; it thus appears that the Corwin system of surveys at the time of their location were surrounded by older surveys. The Cox survey has no original. marked lines or corners, and this is true of all the block of Corwin surveys.

There is no question about the location of the surveys run out by William Hudson'on the north and west, and none regarding the position of the Reynolds and McDowell surveys on the east. It is conceded that the Corwin surveys constitute a system, and should be located as a single survey or block. The record discloses that No. 10 calls to begin at the northwest corner of the Fitzgerald, which is 2688 varas'north and 1344 varas east from A, the identified corner of the Fitzgerald; that the northeast corner of Scott 4 and the northwest corner of Scott 5, B, an identified corner, is 1446 varas from the southwest comer of 5, which is called for in the field, notes of 14; that the field notes of the Cox survey call for survey 14, and for the south line and the southeast corner of Scott survey 6 and the east line and the northeast, comer thereof in the south line of Scott survey No. 7, and also for the northwest corner of the Reynolds survey, which is 1400 varas from C, the identified corner of Scott survey No. 8; that there is 1400 varas excess distance in the eastings and westings between AJ the southwest corner of the Fitzgerald and C, the southwest corner of Scott 8; that if the Cox survey is located by course and distance from A, it will be 1400 varas west and embraced in the dotted lines on the plat, and will not cover D, the land in controversy, but if located by the calls in its field notes for the unmarked lines of the adjacent surveys, the land in controversy designated • D will be a part of the Cox survey and the property of appellee.

In the case of Maddox v. Fenner, 79 Tex. 291, 15 S. W. 237, the contention was “successfully made” that, unless the surveyor of the Stevens tract, the boundaries of which were in controversy, made a gross error in his calls for course and distance, he c.ould not have embraced within said tract all the land between the adjacent surveys, the lines and corners of which were called for in • his field notes of the Stevens survey. — the excess being over 1900 varas. Notwithstanding the excess the court holds there is “no evidence that the lines of the Stevens and the adjoining surveys were not actually run. In the absence of 'evidence on the subject, the presumption must be indulged that the surveyors actually surveyed all of the lines called for.”

To the same effect are the holdings in Steusoff v. Jackson, 40 Tex. Civ. App. 328, 89 S. W. 445; Weston v. Meeker (Tex. Civ. App.) 109 S. W. 461; Groesbeek v. Harris, 82 Tex. 411; Waggoner et al. v. Daniels et al., 18 Tex. Civ. App. 235, 44 S. W. 946.

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Bluebook (online)
275 S.W. 300, 1925 Tex. App. LEXIS 734, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anderson-v-schaefer-texapp-1925.