Barr v. Wall

265 S.W.2d 208, 3 Oil & Gas Rep. 144, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 1709
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 10, 1953
Docket6716
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 265 S.W.2d 208 (Barr v. Wall) 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
Barr v. Wall, 265 S.W.2d 208, 3 Oil & Gas Rep. 144, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 1709 (Tex. Ct. App. 1953).

Opinions

WILLIAMS, Justice.

Lloyd Thompson, the agreed common source of title, conveyed to W. E. Langley a 77.9 acre tract of land out of the Samuel Duncan Survey in Panola County, Texas. In this conveyance, dated December 6, 1916, Thompson retained a vendor’s lien to secure the payment of four vendor’s lien notes therein described, which were executed by Langley tq Thompson. ■ Note No. 1 was paid. Thompson on December 4, 1918, sold and. assigned to J. A. Jordan notes 2, 3 and 4 of the series “together with all and singular the contract lien, vendor’s lien, rights, equities, title and interest in said land” which Thompson had by “virtue of being the vendor, payee and holder of the notes.” This assignment and all conveyances mentioned in this opinion, unless otherwise expressly indicated where each-: forthwith recorded in the -deed records of Panola- County.

Above, notes were outstanding on December "11, 1919, when Langley on this elate executed and delivered a deed which purports to convey to J. O. Smiley an undivided one-half interest in the minerals. Appellants and defendants below, Mrsl Pat M. Bárr joined by her husband, Munson McKinney, W. G. Phillips and Robert M. Williams, individually and as trustee, asserted their respective interests in the aggregate of one-half mineral interest, subject to an outstanding leasehold estate. Such asserted interests are grounded on the title emanating out of the Langley to Smiley mineral deed.

On - November 19, 1921, approximately two years after the recordation of the mineral deed to Smiley, Jordan, the as-signee and owner of the unpaid notes numbered two, three and four and the lien securing the same, filed suit on the notes and for foreclosure of the vendor’s lien. Only W. E. Langley, and no other, was named as defendant. J. A., Jordan was the purchaser of this 77.9 acre tract at the .sheriff’s sale held on July 5, 1922, pur[210]*210suant' to a proper order of sale issued on the judgment of foreclosure dated April 28, 1922. The judgment that was rendered, out of which the order of.sale was issued, describes the 77.9 acres by metes and Bounds; sets out the-‘amount due on the three notes with recovery for such amount; and follows with the ’ recitation, “And it is ordered, adjudged and decreed By the court that the lien as it éxisted on thé 6th day of December, 1916,’ upon the above described tract of land be and the same is hereby foreclosed.” , This title to the tract so acquired by Jordan passed by mesne conveyances to Richard Wall,, and upon the latter’s death was ’inherited by Mrs. Irma Wall, the widow, and W. T. 'Wail,- an only child,’ the appellees and plaintiffs below.

In the conclusions of law died, the court concluded from the findings of- fact that plaintiffs had proved a superior title- and the defendants had not; and that “after foreclosure of a vendor’s lien by the holder of the superior title, a subvendee only had a right of redemption which, when never asserted or exerqised after thirty years is barred by laches.”. Appellees were awarded title and possession to the one-half royalty interest involved here, less 12.233 royalty acres sold by appellees to other persons, not parties to this suit, in November, 1948, and April, 1950.

Appellants assert that the prosecution of the foreclosure suit to final judgment and the acceptance by Jordan of the sheriff’s deed constituted an election on the part of Jordan to affirm the sale which divested Jordan, by waiver of superior title; that is, by such election, superior title was by Jordan relinquished through foreclosure of the vendor’s lien. The recent decision by our Supreme Court in State v. Forest Lawn Lot Owners Ass'n, Tex.Sup., 254 S.W.2d 87, and the decisions cited ór discussed on page 92, sets at rest adversely to appellants this asserted waiver or loss of the superior title. It is there in substance restated that the holder of the superior title has the right to sue the immediate vendee to foreclose the vendor’s lien, and although the subvendee would be a proper party, the subvendee is not a necessary party. ’ And further, the failure to join-a subvendee in a foreclosure suit does not give such subvendee the .legal title to the property. If the purchaser of land at the sale under the judgment was the holder of the superior title, as -here, then and in that event, the purchaser is vested with the legal title to the land.

In such event, the subvendee not being a party to the foreclosure suit, has the right to redeem the property by paying the notes within a reasonable time or institute a suit setting up such equities, Revard v. Wood, Tex.Civ.App., 156 S.W.2d 561, wherein it was held that 15 years is too long to assert such right to redeem the property. The trial court concluded that this right of redemption which, when never asserted or exercised, after thirty years is barred by laches. We are in accord.

The Sheriff’s deed into Jordan following the usual recitations to be found in such character of deed such as references to date, style and number-of the judgment, publication of notices, date of sale, name of purchaser, and amount of bid, etc., then recites, “I, W, H. Matthews as the sheriff as aforesaid, have sold and by these presents do grant and convey unto the said J. A. Jordan all the estate, right, title and interest which the said W. E. Langley had on the 1st day of June, 1922, or at any time afterwards of, in and to the following described premises.” Then follows description of the tract by metes and bounds. The subsequent conveyances under which appellees claim title, -each of which describes the, tract by metes and bounds, closes with the recital “being the same tract conveyed to J. A. Jordan by W. H. Matthews, sheriff in deed recorded in Vol. 59, page 4-73.” (All italics ours). It is appellant’s position, grounded on the recitations that we have italicized, that the sheriff’s deed did not include nor convey the one-half interest that had been conveyed prior thereto by Langley to J. O. Smiley. The observations made in the disposition of [211]*211the preceding point and the authorities there cited are likewise applicable to. this point, and it is overruled. The superior title to the whole tract rested in Jordan on June 1st, 1922, and prior thereto, and remained intact.

W. G. Phillips, a defendant below, who claims one-fourth of the minerals under the tract by yirtue of a mineral deed from Neal Powers, a predecessor in title under the Langley mineral deed, urged the five years statute of limitation, Art. 5509, R.C.S. of Texas, as a bar to plaintiffs’ recovery of such interest. Phillips’ deed to the one-fourth interest which is dated April 12, 1946, was filed for record on May 7, 1946, more than five years prior to the filing of this suit on January 5, 1952. The court found that Phillips paid taxes on a royalty interest, which was and is designated by the tax receipt in evidence as being a percentage-wise part of an oil and gas unit comprising 656.48 acres, during the years. 1947 to 1951,, both inclusive, when due and before delinquency. There is evidence to the effect that -Phillips received royalty payments from the Chicago Corporation- from July, 1946, each and every month to January, 1953. A severance of the surface and mineral estates had occurred years prior to date he had acquired his asserted royalty interest. No possession of any character was shown. No well was located or drilled on the tract involved.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Portwood v. Buckalew
521 S.W.2d 904 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1975)
Reed v. Turner
489 S.W.2d 373 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1972)
Whiteside v. Bell
336 S.W.2d 930 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1960)
Bateman v. CARTER-JONES DRILLING COMPANY
290 S.W.2d 366 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1956)
Barr v. Wall
265 S.W.2d 208 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1953)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
265 S.W.2d 208, 3 Oil & Gas Rep. 144, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 1709, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/barr-v-wall-texapp-1953.