Battles v. Adams

415 S.W.2d 479, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2610
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 10, 1967
Docket11472
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 415 S.W.2d 479 (Battles v. Adams) 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
Battles v. Adams, 415 S.W.2d 479, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2610 (Tex. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

HUGHES, Justice.

E. O. Battles, appellant, as purchaser under a contract of sale of a tract of land in Llano County owned by Loyd C. Sivert and wife Theresa K. Sivert, deposited $4,750.00 as earnest money with Houston H. Adams, a licensed real estate agent. The sale was not consummated and this suit was instituted by Battles against Mr. Sivert and Adams for the return of the $4,750.00 earnest money. Adams paid this sum of money into the registry of the trial court. After a non-jury trial, judgment was rendered denying Battles recovery and decreeing that Adams recover $2,500.00 of such amount and that Sivert recover the balance of $2,250.00.

Appellant’s first point is that since Sivert had pointed out to Battles the east boundary of the 51/2 acre (approximate) tract involved and Sivert later entered into a boundary agreement with an adjoining owner to the east, thereby reducing the water frontage by 27½ feet, that the trial court erred in holding the contract enforceable.

Mr. and Mrs. Sivert owned a 5½ acre tract of land on the Llano River in Llano County known as the Rio Vista Camp. They listed this property for sale with Adams, a licensed real estate agent. On May 1, 1965, a contract for the sale of this property was entered into between Mr. Si-vert and Battles.

The description of the property to be conveyed as contained in the contract was:

“Rio Vista Camp, consisting of approximately 5i/2 acres of land situated on the Llano River in Llano County, Texas, near Kingsland, lying adjacent to lands owned by J. E. Tumlinson on the one side, and by Woodrow McDougall on the other, and being the only lands owned by Loyd C. Sivert and wife, in Llano County, Texas.”

*481 It is undisputed that there was uncertainty regarding the ground location of the dividing line between the Sivert and Mc-Dougall properties. After the execution of the contract of sale, Mr. Battles requested a survey be made of this disputed line. This survey was made by Surveyor Lanning. Following this survey, Mr. Sivert and his neighbor Mr. McDougall entered into a boundary agreement regarding the line dividing their properties the effect of which was that Sivert gave up from eight or nine feet to twenty-seven and one half feet of waterfront property to Mr. McDougall. Mr. Battles did not consent to this boundary agreement. We quote from the testimony of Mr. Battles:

“Q Now, has Mr. Sivert, at any time, failed or refused to deliver to you what he agreed to deliver and convey to you under the terms of that contract?
A I think so.
Q How so?
A Because of the survey. The survey he had made was twenty-seven and a half foot different from what the two owners agreed on.
Q They didn’t say at any time that was an agreed property line, did they? Didn’t he tell you it was simply the way they were going to use the property in that manner of the division?
A No, I understood that they got together over here in Llano and agreed on this second line, or the second survey. The surveyor told me, to start with, that he couldn’t— and I heard him tell Mr. Bruhl— that he couldn’t certify that survey to change it to anywhere other than what it surveyed out, the first time, but he told me, the second time, that he made his second survey that he made he told me he could put a property line anywhere the two owners told him to.
******
A The surveyor put a stake down, yes.
Q When?
A When he surveyed.
Q Well, where did he put the stake down?
A Twenty-seven and a half feet from there further east than it is now.
******
Q What do you know about it ?
A I know that Mr. Lanning went down there and made a survey according to the first two stakes he found, he had his field notes, and it was twenty-seven — I may be wrong on those figures, but, anyway, the notes said twenty-seven west and something else to a line on the water front, and he taken these two stakes and run a survey, and he come out twenty-seven and a half foot from where it is now further east.
Q Who, out twenty-seven and a half feet further east?
A Mr. Lanning did.
Q Are you talking about a survey that was made by R. H. Gibson in 1959 ?
A No, sir.
Q Are you saying Mr. Lanning went out there in 1959?
A Mr. Lanning went out there in 1965.
Q All right. And then did Mr. Lan-ning set his stakes twenty-seven and a half feet farther east?
A He just set a stake under the house and it was twenty-seven and a half foot farther east than the second survey that the two owners agreed on.
Q Did Mr. Lanning tell you that was the property line — that property *482 line twenty-seven and a half feet east?
A That’s right.
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Q Do you know why he changed his mind?
A He told rue because the two owners, McDougall and Sivert, had him change it over there — to put it over there.”

Mr. Battles testified that he and another person measured the distance between the first stake set by the surveyor following a survey and the second stake set after the boundary agreement between Mr. Sivert and Mr. McDougall and the distance was about twenty-seven and one half feet.

Mr. Sivert testified:

“Q Now, afterwards, about May 25, 1965, you and Mr. McDougall settled your differences as to the boundary line by executing an agreed boundary line, did you not?
A At one time. And it had been surveyed, but the survey wasn’t recorded, and I figured — I thought it had changed—
Q How far west was the agreed-upon boundary line from what you thought your east boundary line was, approximately?
A I didn’t measure it. I’d say it was eight or nine feet.
Q Eight or nine feet?
A Right, that would get it.
Q So, actually, when you entered into this boundary line agreement, you accepted less front footage than you had thought you owned, by eight or nine feet.
A Approximately so, I think we had agreed on the sale before we ever come to the boundary dispute.
Q I understand. But after this instrument of contract was executed, you and Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
415 S.W.2d 479, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2610, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/battles-v-adams-texapp-1967.