Cariker v. Knox

276 S.W.2d 365, 1955 Tex. App. LEXIS 2485
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 24, 1955
DocketNo. 12787
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 276 S.W.2d 365 (Cariker v. Knox) 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
Cariker v. Knox, 276 S.W.2d 365, 1955 Tex. App. LEXIS 2485 (Tex. Ct. App. 1955).

Opinion

HAMBLEN, Chief Justice.

W. B. Cariker, Guardian of the Estate of James William Cariker, a minor, as plaintiff, filed this suit in the District Court of Houston County, against H. B. Knox, as defendant, for title and possession of certain land lying partly in the G. H. Prewitt Survey and partly in the M. A. Paulson Survey, in Houston County. The defendant disclaimed as to all of the land described which lay west of a line described in his answer, and filed a plea of not guilty as to any land lying east of such line. Trial was to the court without a jury, and upon the close of the evidence, the court rendered judgment for the plaintiff as to all land lying west of the line described in defendant’s answer, as to which defendant had disclaimed, and rendered judgment that plaintiff take nothing as to the land lying east of such line, as, to which defendant had joined issue by his plea of not guilty.

In his original brief, appellant attacks the take nothing portion of the trial court’s judgment in one point directed to the asserted error of the court in rendering such judgment when the undisputed facts, showed that appellant had possession of the land prior to the entry by appellee who showed no title in himself. We think this point must be overruled for two reasons. From our review of the evidence, the facts, eyen if sufficient to raise the issue of prior possession, do not compel a finding favorable to appellant, consequently this Court is bound by the findings of the trial court, adverse .to him upon that issue. Furthermore, prior possession, even if proven, does no more than give rise to a presumption of ownership, to rebut which, does not require appellee to show title in himself, as impliedly contended in appellant’s stated point of error, but merely requires appellee to show a lack of title in appellant. Butler v. Borroum, Tex.Civ.App., 218 S.W. 1115, and Lund v. Doyno, Tex.Com.App., 91 S.W.2d 315. It requires no citation of authority for the proposition that the plaintiff in the action of trespass to try title must recover, if at all, upon the strength of his own title. For reasons which we will attempt to point out, it is our opinion that even if it could be successfully contended that appellant conclusively established posr session of the land prior to the entry by ap-pellee, the presumption of ownership to which that possession would give rise, has been rebutted by evidence which supports the take nothing judgment entered by the trial court.

The prior occupancy and possession upon which appellant relied consisted of the enclosure of the land by W. P. Car-iker, appellant’s predecessor in title, by a fence erected at least eight years before ap-pellee’s entry on the land, and the use of the land so enclosed for grazing purposes through tenants. The entry by appellee occurred in June of 1953, at which time .ap-pellee Knox tore down the Cariker fence along the east boundary of Cariker’s enclose ure, and erected a new fence approximately parallel to. the Cariker fence, but some 100 varas more or less westwardly thereof. The land between these two fences is that in dispute. Appellant offered testimony by several witnesses relative to the asserted enclosure of the land. At the conclusion of the evidence, the trial court made findings of fact, among which the following are material to the issue of prior possession:

“14.. At the time W. P. Cariker built the fence referred to in Finding No. 12, he also built fences to completely enclose some land lying westerly thereof, but said fence did not enclose all of the land described in the deed referred to in Finding No. 5, nor did it enclose all of the land described as tract number (1) in paragraph II of Plaintiff’s First Amended Original Petition; nor did said fense completely enclose the land described as tract Number (2) of Paragraph No. II in Plaintiff’s First Amended Original Petition.
“15. Immediately after W. P. Cariker built the fence referred to in Finding No. 14 he asked Mr. Karl Leediker to use the land around which he had constructed a fence fori grazing and from that time on [367]*367Mr. Leddiker did use such land for grazing whenever his cattle were in there.
“16. The fence along the line ‘H’, ‘a’, ‘J’, ‘b’ and ‘B’ referred to in Finding No. 12 was down in places many times between the time it was built and June 7, 1953, and was down in several places on June 7, 1953.
“17. The rest of the fence referred to' in Fincfing No. 14 was down in places froth time to time between the time it was built, June 7, 1953, and that part thereof along the road and between the ‘Cariker’ land and ‘Leediker’ land was torn down by people going in and out and some of the wire was taken off and some of the wire is there; and said fence was not maintained.
“18. Within the time referred to in Finding No. 17 a person or persons unknown tore down the fence referred to in Finding No. 14 for a hundred yards and removed from within said fence a little house that had been erected by W. P. Cariker.
“19. .Such use as was made, by Karl Leediker of the land referred to in Finding No. 14, and after the time referred to in Finding No. 15, was grazing by cattle in connection with and as a part of the grazing by said cattle of approximately 2500 acres of land, some owned by the said Karl Leedi-ker and some not owned by him.
“20. During all of such time the fences around such 2500 acres were down in places from time to time, including being down on the South side thereof, and on the said South side of said 2500 acres there was a period as long as a month that such fence was not down.”

Upon such findings, the trial court made the following material conclusions of law:

“6. The use made by Karl Leediker, as the tenant of Plaintiff and/or his predecessor in title, of land easterly of the line ‘V’, ‘W-l’, ‘X’ and ‘Y’ as delineated on the map ‘P-3’ in evidence was not of that exclusive nature necessary to entitle Plaintiff to recover such land on the theory of prior possession.
“7. The use made by Karl Leediker, as the tenant of Plaintiff and/or his predecessor in title, of land easterly of the line ‘V’, ‘W-l’, ‘X’ and ‘Y’ delineated on the map ‘P-3’ in evidence was not of that continuous nature necessary to entitle Plaintiff to recover such land on. the theory of prior possession.
“8. Such use as was made by Karl Leediker of land lying easterly of the line ‘V’, ‘W-l’, ‘X’ and ‘Y’ on the map.identified as ‘P-3’ in evidence wasn’t shown by Plaintiff to have continued for any definite period of time.”

For clarity, it should be stated that the line “V”, “W-l”, “X”, and “Y”, referred to in the stated conclusions of law, represents the location of the Knox fence.

After reviewing’the statement . of facts, we conclude that the factual findings of the trial court are supported. The following excerpts from the testimony of - witnesses offered by appellant are deemed sufficient to support our conclusion.

H. B, Knox, appellee, called as an adverse witness, testified:

“Q. You have been answering as to the salvage value; what was the fence worth standing? A. Nothing. The fence was down in twenty-five places.
“Q. On the east line at the time you tore it down? A.

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Bluebook (online)
276 S.W.2d 365, 1955 Tex. App. LEXIS 2485, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cariker-v-knox-texapp-1955.