Burns v. Goodrich

392 S.W.2d 689, 8 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 475, 1965 Tex. LEXIS 298
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedJune 23, 1965
DocketA-10427
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 392 S.W.2d 689 (Burns v. Goodrich) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Burns v. Goodrich, 392 S.W.2d 689, 8 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 475, 1965 Tex. LEXIS 298 (Tex. 1965).

Opinions

STEAKLEY, Justice.

Respondents, R. C. Goodrich et al., sued Petitioners, Mary Gein Burns and husband, and their assignees, alleging they were trespassers upon a tract of land of approximately 831/3 acres in which Respondents claimed to own the entire surface estate. Respondents sought injunctive relief which was granted by the trial court upon a finding that Petitioners owned no interest in the land. Except as reformed in a manner not relevant here, the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. 382 S.W.2d 501. We hold that Petitioners were not trespassers because the doctrine of after-acquired title made good the title of Mary Gein Burns, and hence that of the Petitioner assignees, to an undivided interest in the land.

The original 200-acre homestead of Lee Lord and wife, Martha J. Lord, included the land in controversy. Lee Lord died intestate and each of six children inherited an undivided 16% acres. A later judgment against the wife burdened her interest with a judgment lien. Thereafter, on May 1, 1938, Mrs. Lord died intestate, and each of the six children inherited an additional undivided 16% acres. Under date of September 26, 1942, Ivy Lord, a son, joined by his wife, conveyed to their daughter, Mary Gein, á Petitioner here, his undivided 33% acres in the 200-acre tract. The provisions of this deed are quoted in the margin.1 On October 30, 1944, Ivy Lord acquired the [691]*691respective undivided 16% acres which two of his brothers had likewise inherited from their father. On May 25, 1945, the judgment lien against the one-half interest of Martha Lord in the 200-acre tract was foreclosed and Mary Gein lost 16% acres which Ivy Lord had previously conveyed to her.2 Martha Lord’s one-half interest in the 200 acres was conveyed to D. B. Speights by sheriff’s deed dated August 7, 1945, and on this same date Speights conveyed to Ivy Lord 331/3 undivided acres out of the interest he purchased at the foreclosure sale. This deed had been lost but its execution, delivery and terms were established in the record and such proof does not involve any application of the Statute of Limitations, Article 5529, Vernon’s Annotated Civil Statutes. Speights testified to the fact that the undivided interest of 331/3 acres conveyed to Ivy Lord was out of the interest purchased by him at the foreclosure sale. It is thus clear that the 33}/$ undivided acres so acquired by Ivy Lord was adverse to the warranty in his deed to Mary Gein to the extent of the undivided 16% acres which he inherited from his mother and which Mary Gein lost in the judgment foreclosure. We need not consider the legal effect, insofar as application of the after-acquired title doctrine is concerned, of the acquisition by Ivy Lord from his brothers of the undivided interests which they had inherited from their father. Respondents are in privity with Ivy Lord by subsequent conveyances.

The doctrine of after-acquired title applies to a love and affection deed from father to son conveying a tract of land encumbered by a valid lien, the father having reacquired the land from the purchaser at foreclosure sale. Robinson v. Douthit, 64 Tex. 101 (1885).

The statement of the rule of after-acquired title from 19 Am.Jur. 614, § 16, was quoted with approval in Clark v. Gauntt, 138 Tex. 558, 161 S.W.2d 270 (1942), and Duhig v. Peavy-Moore Lumber Co., 135 Tex. 503, 144 S.W.2d 878 (1940): “It is a general rule, supported by many authorities, that a deed purporting to convey a fee simple or a lesser definite estate in land and containing covenants of general warranty of title or of ownership will operate to estop the grantor from asserting an after-acquired title or interest in the land, or the estate which the deed purports to convey, as against the grantee and those claiming under him.”

In Moore v. Crawford, 130 U.S. 122, 9 S.Ct. 447, 32 L.Ed. 878 (1889), the court cited the statement by Mr. Justice Strong, speaking for the court in Irvine v. Irvine, 9 Wall. 617, 19 L.Ed. 800 (1869), that “It is a general rule that when one makes a deed of land, covenanting therein that he is the owner, and subsequently acquires an outstanding and adverse title, his new acquisition inures to the benefit of his grantee, on the principle of estoppel.” In Duhig, the following statement from Smith v. Williams, 44 Mich. 240, 6 N.W. 662 (1880), was quoted with approval: “When one assumes, by his deed, to convey a title, and by any form of assurance obligates himself to protect the grantee in the enjoyment of that which the deed purports to give him, he will not be suffered afterwards to acquire or assert a title, and turn his grantee over to a suit upon his covenants for redress. The short and effectual method of redress is to deny him the liberty of setting up his after-acquired title as against his previous conveyance. This is merely refusing him the countenance and assistance of the courts in breaking the assurance which his covenants had given.” See also Cherry v. Farmers Royalty Holding Co., 138 Tex. 576, 160 S.W.2d 908 (1942); Caswell v. Llano Oil Co., 120 Tex. 139, 36 S.W.2d 208 (1931); Baldwin v. Root, 90 Tex. 546, 40 S.W. 3 (1897); and the annotations in 58 A.L.R. 345 and 144 A.L.R. 554.

[692]*692Ivy Lord’s deed to Mary Gein granted, sold and conveyed to her “all that certain tract or parcel of land being situated in Sabine County, Texas, and being a portion of the S. H. Morris headright survey, and described as follows, to-wit: Being 331/3 acres undivided in and to 200 acres of said S. H. Morris headright survey and described as follows: [metes and bounds description].” The habendum clause reads “to have and to hold the above described premises.” The warranty covenant is with respect to “the said premises.” The question to be decided is whether the deed conveyed and warranted title to an undivided 331/3 acres of land, or merely to the undivided interest of Ivy Lord inherited by him from his father and mother however large or small this interest may have been, and subject to any and all liens that may have constituted encumbrances thereon. We hold that the deed conveyed and warranted title to the undivided 33[4 acres of land which Ivy Lord had inherited from his parents. The clear import of the deed when read from its four corners, and particularly of its operative provisions, is to this effect. Cf. Nichols v. Schmittou, 107 Tex. 54, 174 S.W. 283 (1915), White v. Dupree, 91 Tex. 66, 40 S.W. 962 (1897), Richardson v. Levi, 67 Tex. 359, 3 S.W. 444 (1887). The sentence preceding the habendum clause upon which Respondent relies 3 is not an intention clause restricting the granting clause to a conveyance of the grantor’s interest, whatever it might be, under which Mary Gein received all that Ivy Lord intended to convey and all that he warranted, i. e., his inherited undivided interest subject to the judgment lien against his mother. To the contrary, the sentence constitutes an identifying reference to the interest in land which was the subject of the conveyance and comports with the granting clause which states in clear and unambiguous terms the conveyance by the grantor of an undivided 33[4 acres of land.

The Court of Civil Appeals relied principally upon Clark v. Gauntt, supra; upon Wilson v. Wilson, 118 S.W.2d 403

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Burns v. Goodrich
392 S.W.2d 689 (Texas Supreme Court, 1965)

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Bluebook (online)
392 S.W.2d 689, 8 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 475, 1965 Tex. LEXIS 298, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burns-v-goodrich-tex-1965.