Belt v. Texas Co.

204 S.W.2d 653, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 741
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 28, 1947
DocketNo. 5752
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 204 S.W.2d 653 (Belt v. Texas Co.) 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
Belt v. Texas Co., 204 S.W.2d 653, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 741 (Tex. Ct. App. 1947).

Opinion

STOKES, Justice.

Prior to the year 1924, in a partition of the lands of the C. C. Slaughter Cattle Company, Bob Slaughter was awarded approximately 16,000 acres located in Hock-ley County. In 1924 he negotiated a loan in the sum of $100,000 with the Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank. The bank was limited in a single loan to the sum of $50,000 and, in order to procure the loan in the sum desired, Bob Slaughter executed a deed of trust on the north half of the land to the Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank to secure his own note for $50,000 and conveyed the south half of the tract of 16,000 acres to his brother-in-law and sister, Dr. George T. Veal and his wife, Minnie Slaughter Veal. As consideration for the conveyance, the Veals executed a note in the sum of $50,000 payable to Bob Slaughter, who retained a vendor’s lien on the land so conveyed and he immediately assigned the note and lien to the Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank. The bank thereupon loaned to Dr. and Mrs. Veal $50,000 upon the south half of the land and a short time thereafter Dr. and Mrs. Veal reconveyed the south half of the tract to Bob Slaughter, who assumed the $50,000 note that had been executed by the Veals. Bob Slaughter then had the land surveyed and platted into ninety-eight separate tracts ranging in area from approximately 119 acres to approximately 183 acres, and, on the 16th of February, 1925, he caused a plat thereof to be filed in the office of the County Clerk of Hockley County and designated the entire 16,000 acres as the Bob Slaughter Block. He then began selling the subdivided tracts to settlers for relatively small cash payments, the assumption of approximately $6.50 per acre of the indebtedness held by the Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank, and usually one note for a substantial amount payable ten years after date, and a series of smaller notes payable annually, all bearing interest at a stipulated rate and secured by vendor’s liens. The series of smaller notes was payable out of the proceeds of one-third of the cotton raised on the land each year and, as additional security for them, crop mortgages were executed by the purchasers. In many of the deeds conveying these tracts to farmers and settlers, one-sixteenth of the oil, gas and minerals was retained by Bob Slaughter as a nonparticipating royalty.

George T. Veal and his wife were the owners of fifty-five per cent of the capital stock of Slaughter Land & Cattle Company, a corporation, incorporated under the [655]*655laws of Arizona on April 14, 1913, with an authorized capital stock of $250,000. The corporation owned a ranch near Moc-tezuma in the State of Sonora, Republic of Mexico, consisting of approximately 200,000 acres, though the area and extent of the ranch is somewhat uncertain.

On January 2, 1932, Bob Slaughter and Dr. George T. Veal and his wife, Minnie Slaughter Veal, entered into a written contract by the terms of which Slaughter sold and agreed to convey to the Veals all of the tracts and subdivisions of the Bob Slaughter Block in Hockley County that had not theretofore been sold to settlers, in consideration of the assignment to him of 525 shares of the capital stock of the Slaughter Land & Cattle Company. The shares of stock were designated as fifty-five per cent of the capital stock of the corporation and were valued in the contract at $104,500. Bob Slaughter then owned approximately 2,400 acres of the Bob Slaughter Block, encumbered with the indebtedness and liens held by the Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank of approximately $6 per acre, and the Hockley County land was stipulated in the contract to be of the value of $18 per acre, after deducting the $6 per acre covered by the liens to the Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank, making a total of $41,760. In addition to the Hock-ley County land, Slaughter assigned to Dr. and Mrs. Veal second lien notes of the aggregate face value of $78,253.83, secured by vendor’s liens on tracts in the Bob Slaughter Block that had been sold by him to various purchasers. These, being second lien notes, were appraised by stipulation in the contract at Eighty Cents on the dollar of par value, making an appraised value of $62,602.66. This left a small balance of $137.34, which Slaughter agreed to pay in cash, aggregating $104,-500, the equivalent of the agreed value of the ranch in Mexico.

On the same day a deed was duly executed by Bob Slaughter conveying the Hockley County land to the Veals reciting a consideration of $41,760.00 “in hand paid by George T. Veal and wife, Minnie Slaughter Veal, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged.” The second lien notes were duly assigned to the Veals by Slaughter and the $137.34 was paid in cash.

Prior to the transactions above detailed, on May 29, 1931, Bob Slaughter had executed and delivered to appellant, W. D. Belt, Jr., his promissory note in the principal sum of $1,605.61, payable six months after date, bearing interest at the rate of eight per cent per annum and containing the usual attorney’s fee clause. In January, 1934, the note not having been paid, Belt instituted suit thereon in the District Court of Lubbock County and on November 23, 1934, judgment was entered against Slaughter for the sum of $2,260.68, the aggregate of the principal, interest and attorney’s fees due thereon. On December 26, 1934, an abstract of the judgment was issued, filed for record and duly recorded in Hockley County on the 28th of December, 1934. On July 30, 1935, an alias execution was issued on the judgment, under which the sheriff of Hockley County levied upon a number of the tracts in the Bob Slaughter Block, aggregating approximately 2,400 acres, and on September 3, 1935, at public outcry, he sold to W. D. Belt, Jr., “all of the right, title and interest of Bob Slaughter” in the land upon his bid of $500, which was credited on the judgment, and the sheriff accordingly executed and delivered to Belt a sheriff’s deed which was filed for record in Hock-ley County .February 11, 1936.

On February 26, 1936, George T. Veal and wife, Minnie Slaughter Veal, executed and delivered to appellee, The Texas Company, an oil and gas lease on seven full tracts and portions of six others, being parts of the land here involved, aggregating 2,025.6 acres, for which The Texas Company paid them a bonus of $2,025.60. The lease contained a provision that the land so leased and other lands in the community upon which the lessee might obtain similar leases were to constitute a unitized block, consisting in the aggregate of approximately 6,000 acres, and for the sharing by all lessors in the unitized block of royalties on production from any and all lands in the unitized block.

On the 5th of November, 1937, Sue Alice Slaughter, wife of R. L. Slaughter, Jr., who was a nephew of Mrs. Veal and son of [656]*656Bob Slaughter, purchased from Dr. and Mrs. Veal approximately 3,859 acres of the Bob Slaughter Block, consisting of eighteen subdivisions and parts of thirteen others, together with certain interests in oil and gas reservations and royalties which the Veals had retained in sales theretofore made by them of a number of other subdivisions. The consideration recited in this deed was $16,274.47 paid in cash by the appellee, Sid W. Richardson, to the Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank, and the assumption by Sue Alice Slaughter of the balance due that bank upon the loans held by it against Bob Slaughter and the Veals; the further consideration of “the love and affection we bear our niece, the grantee herein”; and the still further consideration of a vendor’s lien note executed by Sue Alice Slaughter in the sum of $32,199.98, payable to the Veals one year after date with interest at seven per cent-um per annum.

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

Related

Associated Employers Insurance Co. v. Burris
321 S.W.2d 112 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1959)
Texas & N. O. R. v. Wilkerson
260 S.W.2d 912 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1953)
Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Connell
250 S.W.2d 400 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1952)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
204 S.W.2d 653, 1947 Tex. App. LEXIS 741, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/belt-v-texas-co-texapp-1947.