Brown v. Smith

168 S.W.2d 513
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 4, 1942
DocketNo. 4092
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 168 S.W.2d 513 (Brown v. Smith) 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
Brown v. Smith, 168 S.W.2d 513 (Tex. Ct. App. 1942).

Opinion

WALKER, Chief Justice.

On the 15th day of June, 1939, appellees, Ector and Floyd Smith, joined by their wives, executed to appellants, H. L. Brown and W. R. Wheeler, a mineral lease on 62.75 acres of land in Jefferson county. This lease conveyed to the lessees a seven-eighths mineral interest in the land, lessors reserving a one-eighth royalty interest. The consideration was $6,275. The ■lease and a cashier’s check for the con[515]*515sideration were attached to an escrow agreement executed by appellants and ap-pellees on the 15th day of June, 1939, and all three instruments were deposited with the escrow agent, Security State Bank & Trust Company. By the escrow agreement, appellees as “lessor” bound themselves “to forthwith prepare and deliver to the lessee for examination by his attorneys, a complete abstract of title to the land described in said lease, brought down to date,” and appellants as “lessee” bound themselves: “If title to said land is good as shown by said abstract, the lessee shall accept said lease and same shall be delivered to it and the check shall be delivered to lessor.” Appellees delivered to appellants certain abstracts which they refused to accept as in compliance with the escrow contract. Thereupon appellees brought this suit against appellants and the esrow agent, alleging full compliance by them and praying for judgment for the $6,275, with interest and costs. The escrow agent answered by interpleader, tendering the funds held by it into court, and praying for judgment for its costs, with reasonable attorney’s fees. Appellants defended on the theory that appellees had not complied with the escrow contract and did not have good title to the land, and by cross action against appellees for the costs and attorney’s fees that the escrow agent might recover against them. On trial to the court without a jury, judgment was for appellees against appellants for $6,-275, with interest at six per cent per annum from December 15, 1939; for the escrow agent for its costs, including attorney’s fees; and against appellants on their cross action. Appellants have regularly prosecuted their appeal.

Appellants assign error against the trial court’s fact conclusion that appellees prepared and furnished them “a complete abstract” which showed a good title, in appellees to the seven-eighths mineral interest covered by the mineral lease attached to the escrow agreement. This assignment is overruled.

The leased premises consisted of four small tracts of land. The theory of ap-pellees was that all four tracts are on section 17, H. T. & B. R. R. Company survey. Appellants contend that “it was reasonable to conclude” that a part of the land was on section 16 of this survey — section 17 lies immediately west of section 16; that the location of the dividing line between sections 17 and 16, as shown- by the abstracts furnished them by appellees, was uncertain. Therefore, appellants contend appellees breached the contract by not furnishing them a basic abstract of section 16 for the period to April 4, 1935.

The location of the dividing line between sections 17 and 16 was an immaterial issue. Long prior to 1930 appellees .owned section 16. On the 3rd day of March, 1930, Mrs. C. B. Lee, owning section 17, conveyed it to C. D. Doornbos, reserving a one-thirty-second royalty interest in the minerals, and excepting from her conveyance two small tracts of land being parts of the land in controversy; Doorn-bos conveyed section 17 to L. D. Fontenot. One week after her conveyance to Doorn-bos, Mrs. Lee conveyed the two tracts of land which she excepted from her conveyance to Doornbos to appellee Floyd Smith, reserving to herself a one-thirty-second .royalty interest in the minerals. On the 8th day of July, 1937, appellees recovered judgment against Mrs. Lee, Doornbos and Fontenot for the title and possession of the 62.75 acres of land in controversy subject to Mrs. Lee’s reserved royalty. As the basis of their title, appel-lees plead the statute of limitation of ten years, and in rendering judgment in their favor the court found that appellees had been in continuous, open, notorious and adverse possession of the land in controversy from the 27th day of July, 1927. Appellees recoyered the land, not by reference to sections 16 and 17, but by field notes locating the land by artificial objects on the ground — public roads, pipe lines, drainage canals, etc. The specific description in these field notes was so definite and certain that no possible issue could arise as to the location on the ground of the very land recovered by appellees. The land leased by appellees to appellants was the' very land recovered by them in this judgment and described as it was described in the judgment. Since the record title to section 17 was in the defendants in that suit, and appellees owned the record title to section 16, and the land in controversy was located on the ground by calls for objects on the ground, the judgment in favor of appellees vested in them the title to the land in controversy whether it was on section 17 or section 16. Therefore, the location on the ground of the dividing line between these sections was an-immaterial issue. These facts were reflected by [516]*516the abstracts furnished by appellees to appellants.

We also overrule appellants’ point that there are outstanding mineral leases executed by the owners of section 17 which cloud appellees’ title because of the uncertainty as to the location on the ground of .the dividing line between sections 16 and 17. Appellees’ judgment against Mrs. Lee, Doornbos and Fontenot was rendered on the 8th day of July, 1937. This judgment was rendered on the court’s finding, written into the face of the judgment, that appellees’ adverse possession began prior to the 8th day of July, 1927. No lease which could cloud appellees’ title was executed prior to the 8th day of July, 1927. The leases executed subsequent to that date, no possession being shown under the leases, did not interrupt the running of limitation in favor of appellees. Broughton v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., Tex. Civ.App., 150 S.W.2d 480. The abstract furnished by appellees to appellants showed the date of the execution of these leases and that they did not cloud appellees’ title, under the principles of law announced in the case just cited. As against this con'clusion, appellants say they were not required to accept a limitation title. Appellants’ proposition relates only to a limitation claim -and has no application to a limitation claim reduced to title by the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction.

We overrule appellants’ exceptions to the abstracts, on the ground that they disclosed certain easements—public roads, pipe lines, drainage canals, etc.—across the 62.75 acres of land. On the face of the abstracts these easements would not have interfered in any way with appellants’ development of the land under the lease attached to the escrow agreement.

One further word on the obligation to furnish “a complete abstract.” The escrow agreement gave its own definition of a complete abstract—one that “showed ■good title .to said land.” The abstracts furnished showed that appellees owned good title to the seven-eighths mineral interest in controversy, and on full development of the facts on the trial no defect was shown which to the least extent cast a cloud upon appellees’ title. The escrow agreement did not bind appellees to furnish additional copies of instruments which on the face of the abstracts furnished would not have disclosed defects in the title, and the additional instruments requested by appellants were of this nature.

Again, appellees lived in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Related

Miller v. Speed
259 S.W.2d 235 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1952)
Brown v. Smith
174 S.W.2d 43 (Texas Supreme Court, 1943)

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Bluebook (online)
168 S.W.2d 513, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-smith-texapp-1942.