Boffa v. Hebert

42 S.W.2d 624
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 17, 1931
DocketNo. 2117
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 42 S.W.2d 624 (Boffa v. Hebert) 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
Boffa v. Hebert, 42 S.W.2d 624 (Tex. Ct. App. 1931).

Opinion

O’QUINN, J.

As disclosed by the record, about August 8, 1927, appellants, Mary Boffa and her hus- - band, -Frank Boffa, sued appellees in trespass to try title alleging ownership of a certain lot in the city of Beaumont, Tex., claiming same by the ten years’ statute of limitation (Rev. St. 1925, art. 5510), and prayed for a temporary injunction to restrain appellees from interfering with their use of said lot. The restraining order was granted. Appel-lees answered by plea of not guilty and certain pleas not necessary to mention, and by affirmative plea for title to the land. The case was tried to a jury, and under a general charge of the court the jury found for the defendants, appellees, and judgment was so entered. The plaintiffs, appellants here, appealed the cause to the Ninth Court of Civil Appeals, where said judgment was affirmed. 27 S.W.(2d) 305.

The instant suit was brought by Mary Boffa, joined by her husband, Frank Boffa, appellants, May 20, 1930, to set aside the aforementioned judgment on the ground of alleged fraud in said first suit resulting in said judgment, and to recover the lot in question, being lot No. 449 in block No. 60 in the city of Beaumont.

The defendants, appellees, answered by general demurrer, special exception that plaintiffs’ petition set forth no facts that would constitute fraud relative to the judgment assailed, but were mere conclusions of the pleader, general denial, plea of not guilty, and specially pleaded the judgment in the former suit as res judicata of the question here involved, to wit, the title to the lot in question.

The case was tried to a jury, but on the conclusion of the evidence, the defendants, appellees, by written motion requested the court to instruct a verdict in their favor, which was granted, the verdict returned for appellees, upon which judgment was entered. Motion for a new trial was overruled, and the case is before us on appeal.

Appellees object to appellants’ brief for various reasons, among which is that same is not in compliance with any of the rules prescribed for briefing cases on appeal. The objections to the brief seem to be well taken. The statement of the nature and result of the suit is very insufficient, and there are nó assignments of error in the brief. The grounds urged in the motion for a new trial, if they could be considered as assignments ot error, are not brought forward in the brief, and besides they are, under all the decisions, too general. They are:

“First. Because the verdict of the jury is contrary to the evidence.”
“Second. Because the judgment of the court is contrary to the law.”

Such assignments as these have uniformly been held to be insufficient to be considered.

However, we have fully considered the matters attempted to be presented in the brief. They are presented under the heading: “Appellants’ Objections to the Rulings of the Court in the Trial of said Case.”

The first is that the court erred in sustaining appellees’ demurrer to appellants’ petition. We presume this has relation to appel-lees’ general demurrer. There is nothing in the record to show that said demurrer, or any demurrer, was urged to the court, or that the court passed upon same. In fact, the record shows that the case was regularly tried, the evidence of both parties introduced, many witnesses testifying, and that upon the conclusion of the evidence a peremptory ver-[626]*626diet was returned for appellees by tbe jury upon motion of appellees granted by tbe court.

Tbe second is that the court erred in taking the case from tbe jury and instructing a verdict for appellees, because it was a question of fact for the jury to determine whether appellants bad acquired title to the lot in question by the ten years’ statute of limitation. Tbe instructed verdict was proper. This matter bad been litigated in the former suit between tbe same parties and over tbe same lot of land, and judgment in said former suit was for appellees. That judgment was res judicata as to the question. But appellants insist that appellant Mary Boffa was an unwilling litigant in that suit, and that she was fraudulently brought into same by her husband, and hence she was not bound by said former judgment. Tbe record fails to support, or even to raise, the issue of fraud. Tbe record shows that in the former suit she, joined by her husband, were tbe plaintiffs, and nowhere shows any indication that she was not tbe moving party to the institution of said suit. Anyway she was a party, not in any manner made so by appel-lees, and appellees, after having been invited into tbe court to litigate the matter, duly answered and plead affirmatively against her for the title and possession of tbe land, which was duly adjudged to them, from which judgment she appealed and (which, as before stated, was affirmed) nowhere protested that she was not a voluntary party to tbe suit. If she failed to plead or prove her claim to tbe lot in litigation by the ten years’ statute of limitation, in said former suit, then such failure must be charged to her negligence in so doing, and she is bound by said judgment because it is well settled that final judgment between parties litigating the right to certain property is res judicata of all rights litigated or that could have been properly asserted in said suit, attempted to be asserted in a future suit between the same parties as to the same property. See cases cited in Digest of Texas Reports, vol. 15, pp. 124,125. Furthermore, the instructed verdict was proper, because by her own testimony she shows that she did not take and bold the lot in question adversely to the record owner, but to the contrary she testified: “He sold the lot on which the store is, but didn’t sell the second lot. (The lot in litigation). I have been using that lot 30 years. He gave me that to use for everything I wanted. I wanted to buy it, I got the money; been using it for 33 years. He told me to go ahead and use. I was going to buy it afterwards. I told him when I got through with the other I would buy that, and he told me to go ahead and use it for whatever I wanted. He just told me to go ahead and use it. * * He sold me the corner lot. I understood he owned the lot next door and he told me I could use it.” Mrs. Boffa’s taking possession and using the lot was permissive — she, herself, says so, and there is nothing in the record to show that she ever brought to the knowledge of the owner of the lot her repudiation of her tenancy and adverse claim to the property. This she must have done, for having taken possession of the property by the permission of the owner, she became his tenant and so remained until she repudiated her tenancy and brought notice of such repudiation to her landlord. Benskin v. Barksdale (Tex. Com. App.) 246 S. W. 360. The mere fact that in this suit she says she all the time claimed the lot by limitation is not sufficient, for her secret determination to so claim will not support her hostile claim; it must have been open, notorious, and hostile to the owner of the lot to avail her. This is not shown.

The third contention is that the court erred in taking the ease from the jury and instructing a verdict for appellees, because such action of the court deprived appellants of “presenting the decisions of the higher courts on the questions involved in said cause to the jury and to the court,” setting forth numerous decisions which were intended to be so presented. There is nothing in this contention.

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Bluebook (online)
42 S.W.2d 624, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boffa-v-hebert-texapp-1931.