Bockel v. Fidelity Development Co.

101 S.W.2d 628
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 21, 1937
DocketNo. 10292
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 101 S.W.2d 628 (Bockel v. Fidelity Development 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
Bockel v. Fidelity Development Co., 101 S.W.2d 628 (Tex. Ct. App. 1937).

Opinion

GRAVES, Justice.

This statement, taken from appellant’s brief, is conceded to be substantially correct:

“The case was tried upon an agreed statement of facts. The material facts are as follows:

“Erasmus Bockel, appellant’s grandfather, owned a tract of land in Harris County of which the one acre herein involved was a part, tie died in 1903, leaving a will which was duly probated. The will provided:

“ ‘It is my will and wish that one acre square out of my said homestead tract the center of which shall be the present graves of the deceased members of -my family, shall be set aside by my executors hereinafter named as a family graveyard, never to be sold, but to be preserved and kept by them as a family burial ground for my family and the families of my said children and for no other purpose.’
“The executors set aside as a cemetery the -one acre of ground sued for herein.
“Later' Erasums Bockel and his wife (appellant’s grandparents) and Albert Bockel (appellant’s father), and other members of his family were buried in the cemetery, as well as other persons who were not members of the Bockel family, including four negroes whose families had worked for Erasums Bockel. Albert Bock-el had no children other than appellant. He was married but the one time, and that to appellant’s mother, now Elizabeth Haus-man.
“Albert Bockel, appellant’s father, died in 1914, leaving a will, After making specific bequests, which do not affect the cemetery, he left the residue of his estate to Frederick Bockel, appellant’s uncle. The probate of his father’s will was contested by appellant, and finally the contest was compromised by the terms of which the will was admitted to probate and appellant was deeded certain properties and given some money.
[629]*629“In each of the several instruments and muniments of title of the lands adjoining the one-acre cemetery from Erasmus Bock-el down to the Houston Land Corporation (appellee Fidelity Development Company’s ' immediate grantor), the one-acre cemetery and passageways thereto were expressly excepted from the conveyance.
“About the month of June, 1931, the Houston Land Corporation, desiring to acquire the one-acre cemetery tract which was excepted from the deed to it, negotiated through Forest Park Cemetery an exchange of the cemetery tract for lots isi Forest Park Cemetery. Such negotiations were had with all of the' surviving devisees named in the will of Erasmus Bockel and the heirs of those who were deceased, except appellant. Neither appellant nor his guardian had any notice of the intent to acquire the cemetery tract or to remove the bodies therefrom; nor did appellant or his guardian have any knowledge of such negotiations until after the bodies had been removed. In pursuance of such negotiations all the bodies were removed from the cemetery-tract, and were reinterred in the Forest Park Cemetery, which is a modern and well kept cemetery.
“After the removal of the bodies and ■of the tombstones and other markers connected with the graves, in further pur•suance of their agreement, the said de-visees and heirs, except appellant, executed their deeds of conveyance to the Forest Park Cemetery, relinquishing all. their rights in the one acre cemetery. In return the Forest Park Cemetery executed deeds to grave-lots to the grantors in the deeds to it, in which they recited that the one-acre tract ‘known as the Bockel Graveyard, has been completely abandoned for burial and cemetery purposes’ by the •Grantees. The Forest Park Cemetery then executed a deed of conveyance of the one-acre tract to the Houston Land Corporation.
“Prior to the year 1930, the city limits of the City of Houston were extended so as to include the cemetery and its vicinity. About the year 1931, part of the land adjacent to the cemetery, and other adjoining lands, were subdivided into lots and blocks with paved streets, and has since developed into a high-class residential district in the City of Houston.
“A few months after he learned that the bodies of his ancestors and relatives had been removed from the cemetery, appellant brought this suit, asking that he have judgment declaring and establishing the one acre as a cemetery, and enjoining the appellees from interfering with the use of such acre as a cemetery and from inter- • fering with the ingress and egress thereto, and that a passageway from nearby streets to said cemetery be established.
“The case was tried before the court without a jury, upon fhe agreed statement of facts, and briefs of counsel. After taking the cause under advisement, the court rendered judgment for appellées, without stating the reasons therefor.”

Inveighing in this court against such adverse determination to himself below, the appellant in each of four propositions of law not only asserts the one acre in controversy to have become dedicated as an inalienable private cemetery — under the quoted provision of his grandfather’s will and the -subsequent burial of many members óf the testator’s family therein — but, further, that he himself, in virtue alone of being the dedicator’s grandson, had become vested with such a continuing right of sepulture therein as entitled him (whatever the relations, rights, or titles of the ap-pellees, or those down under whom they claimed)-to the injunctive relief he thus prayed for: “Judgment declaring and establishing said one acre of land above described* to be a cemetery, and that defend-: ants be restrained and enjoined from interfering with the use of said one acre of ground as a cemetery and from interfering with the ingress and egress thereto and from, and that a passageway convenient to and accessible from nearby streets or roads be established.”

This court, after careful examination of all the' facts detailed in the agreed statement, is unable to accept appellant’s view or to sustain any of his contentions. In the first place, as indicated, he grounded his entire claim upon the single detached fact that he was his grandfather’s grandson, declaring that the provision in the will followed by a setting apart and using of a portion of the one acre for a time as the private family graveyard the testator had desired to become inalienably established as such had become just that in his favor, without any other alleged relationship of himself toward'it than his stated kinship; at the same time he neither alleged nor proved any financial or other damage to himself than the mere refusal of the ap-pellees to recognize such abiding sepulture [630]*630right in him, conceding also that he had never had any right or title to any land that passed under his grandfather’s will, his father having disinherited him and willed the land immediately surrounding the one-acre tract to his uncle, Frederick Bockel, and it further appearing that he had never before filing his application for such injunctive relief on September 16 of 1933 asserted or claimed this or any other right in the one-acre tract.

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

Related

Kelly v. Womack
261 S.W.2d 599 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1953)
Gibson v. Berry Cemetery Ass'n
250 S.W.2d 600 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1952)
Persinger v. Persinger
86 N.E.2d 335 (Fayette County Court of Common Pleas, 1949)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
101 S.W.2d 628, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bockel-v-fidelity-development-co-texapp-1937.