Baten v. Smart

295 S.W.2d 521, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 1933
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 20, 1956
DocketNo. 6063
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 295 S.W.2d 521 (Baten v. Smart) 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
Baten v. Smart, 295 S.W.2d 521, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 1933 (Tex. Ct. App. 1956).

Opinion

R. L. MURRAY, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment in the district court of Newton County in a suit brought by the appellant G. D. Baten against the appellees Arthur Smart, et. ah, involving the removal of a house by Smart from land owned by Baten. The case was tried to the court without a jury and no judgment was rendered during the term of court at which it was tried. At a subsequent term of court the parties stipulated that the case could be submitted to the court on the evidence adduced at the trial in the former term, and the court rendered judgment February 3, 1956, that the appellant Baten, as plaintiff in the trial court, take nothing by his suit. Findings of fact and conclusions of law were filed in the trial court at the request of the appellant for such findings and conclusions and the appeal was duly perfected to this court for a review of the judgment.

Before stating or considering appellant’s points on appeal, we find it necessary to state a summary of the pleadings, various proceedings, admitted facts and conflicting evidence.

In November, 1941, Mrs. Baten, mother of the appellant G. D. Baten, was the ad-ministratrix of the estate of Thomas J. Baten, deceased. The land involved in this suit was a part of the S. L. Fuller Survey in Newton County and it was a part of the property being administered by her in such capacity. Mr. Baten, the appellant, was the man in charge of these premises, taking care of the details of the management for his mother. In November, 1941, Arthur Smart, one of the appellees, and his wife and children moved on to the land, with permission, as a tenant. He agreed to pay small rentals but was usually delinquent in these payments. The house on the property was variously described in the evidence as a log house, a building partly made from logs, and a shack in a bad state of repair. In March, 1947, appellant G. D. Baten acquired title from his mother and sister to the land in the said Fuller Survey, his title being to the surface and a portion of the minerals. Arthur Smart was on the land from 1941 until 1949. Shortly after Mr. Baten acquired title, Smart being still delinquent in his rent, he ordered Smart to move off the land. Smart moved off the land all right but he moved a house with him, and therein sprouted the seeds of this controversy and litigation.

Some time between this period of 1941 to 1949, Smart built on the Baten land a house in which he lived. He testified that with the consent of Mr. Baten he built an entirely separate house from the old one which he found there when he moved on the land, and that he built it from lumber and materials which were largely to be found in the house which Smart owned over on another piece of land nearby and partly from materials which he bought in the [523]*523nearby town of Wiergate. Smart’s wife testified that most of the lumber and materials came from a house which she owned. Mr. Baten contends, and so testified, that no new house was built but additions and improvements were added to his house, the one originally on the land when Smart moved on the property. Mr. Baten lives, and did at the time, in Beaumont, some distance away from the land involved and made infrequent trips to view the property. He testified that in the course of his infrequent visits he did not see a new house being built, but he did notice what appeared to him to be additions and improvements to the old one. He denied he gave Smart permission to build a new house or to move any property from his land to that of another. Smart testified that he constructed the new domicile with the consent of Mr. Baten for Smart’s own use and benefit, with the understanding that it was to be Smart’s property. The intimation is to be found in his naive testimony that when Mr. Baten ordered him to move off the land he thought he had a right to move the house off the land when he himself moved off. At any rate, the next time Mr. Baten went back to visit his property and to see whether Smart had vacated the premises, he discovered his premises completely vacated. There was nothing remaining on the land but a utility pole and a place where there had been a well. He found a few pieces of scrap lumber but no semblance of a building or a fence. He thereupon hunted up Smart, who had his house and family down on another piece of land a few hundred yards away, an asked him about getting off his land. He was told that they had been off his land “since last November.” This was in April, 1950. He demanded the return of his house and then filed suit for his house and for an order from the court permitting him to move it back on his land and for damages. The original petition was filed in October, 1951.

In February, 1955, appellant Baten filed his first amended original petition, alleging that Smart, et al., had, without permission of Baten, disguised the house by various additions and arrangement and had moved his house off his land. In the alternative he pleaded that if Smart, et al., had removed or destroyed the old house on his land and replaced it with another which he moved to another tract of land, then he alleged that Smart had no right or authority to destroy, remove or replace such house with any other house; he sued for title and possession of the house, damages and for a restraining order to prevent the appellees from interfering with him in the removal of the house.

The appellees answered the original petition and later filed their first amended original answer in February, 1952, and appellee Arthur Smart filed an amended answer in September, 1953. Such answer pleaded a general denial, special denial that he had committed any wrongful act against the appellant or his property, and further specially pleaded that with the permission of Mr. Baten, while he was Mr. Baten’s tenant, he built a house on the land out of lumber and materials of his own and with his own labor, with the consent and knowledge of Mr. Baten, for Smart’s use and benefit and with the understanding between them that said building would belong to and remain the property of Smart, and that he would be privileged to move the building off the land; that when Mr. Baten ordered him to vacate the land he removed the building, with Baten’s consent, and located it on land that belonged to Smart and that he ever since that time had occupied such house and land as his home.

In May, 1952, the appellees Smart, et al., filed a request for admissions of fact. Mr. Baten answered with his response to such request for admissions of fact filed in June, 1952. These replies for request for admissions served only to join issues of fact in regard to what Smart did in building the house on Baten’s land and moving it off, and whether or not these things were done with the knowledge and consent of Baten.

[524]*524The trial court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law were as follows:

“1.

“I find that prior to March 13, 1947, the mother of plaintiff, C. D. Baten, was the owner of the S. L. Fuller Survey, Abst. 815, situated in Newton County, Texas; and that on or about said date the plaintiff acquired the fee simple title to said Fuller Survey, save some mineral interest not necessary to notice here.

“2.

"For several years prior to March 13, 1947, there was an old and dilapidated log house consisting of two or three rooms, known as the Frank Bryant house, located on the Fuller Survey; in connection with this house, a small acreage of the land was enclosed by a rail fence. This fence was old and hardly sufficient to keep livestock out of the enclosed premises.

“3.

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Bluebook (online)
295 S.W.2d 521, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 1933, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baten-v-smart-texapp-1956.