Chapman v. King Ranch, Inc.

41 S.W.3d 693, 2001 WL 30620
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 26, 2001
Docket13-98-163-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 41 S.W.3d 693 (Chapman v. King Ranch, Inc.) 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
Chapman v. King Ranch, Inc., 41 S.W.3d 693, 2001 WL 30620 (Tex. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinions

OPINION

HINOJOSA, Justice.

Appellants, the heirs and devisees of William and Helen Chapman, brought a trespass to try title suit against appellees to establish their title to an undivided one-half interest in approximately 15,449.4 acres of land known as the “Rincon de Santa Gertrudis” (“the Rincon”). Appellants also sought a bill of review to set aside a consent judgment entered in 1883 which conveyed the Chapman family’s interest in the Rincon to Richard King. The trial court granted appellees’ motions for summary judgment. By five issues, appellants contend the trial court erred in granting appellees’ motions for summary judgment. We reverse and remand.

A. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Rincon is located south of Corpus Christi, Texas and today covers parts of the King Ranch, the City of Kingsville, and the Kingsville Naval Air Station. About 150 years ago, the State of Texas issued a land patent conveying the Rincon to the heirs of Juan Mendiola. On July 23, 1853, they sold the Rincon to Richard King who on November 11, 1853 sold an undivided one-half interest in the Rincon to Gideon Lewis. On April 25, 1856, King executed a deed to William Chapman, conveying to him an undivided one-half interest in the remaining undivided one-half interest which King owned in the Rincon for the sum of one hundred dollars. Thus, King and Chapman each owned an undivided one-fourth interest in the Rincon.

Lewis died in 1855, and the administrator of his estate, Hamilton Bee, sold the estate’s undivided one-half interest in the Rincon to King and Chapman. In 1856, Bee executed a deed (“the Lewis Deed”) conveying the property to King and Chapman, jointly, for the sum of $1575 for which King gave his individual promissory note. Upon the execution of the Lewis Deed, King and Chapman each owned an [697]*697undivided one-half interest in the Rincon. According to appellants, the Lewis Deed was not delivered to Chapman, but was delivered to King, or to King’s agents and attorneys. The Lewis Deed was not recorded until 1904, forty-eight years after it was executed.

Chapman died testate in 1859 and left all of his property to his wife, Helen Chapman. Upon probate of his will, Helen became the owner of an undivided one-half interest in the Rincon. On April 11, 1879, she brought a trespass to try title suit against King in the 25th District Court of Nueces County, Texas (“the 1879 Suit”).2 In this suit, Helen sought to affirm her title and obtain possession of the undivided one-half interest in the Rincon which she had received from her husband. She based her claim on the one-fourth interest deeded by King to Chapman and the one-half interest jointly purchased by King and Chapman from the Lewis Estate.

B. HELEN CHAPMAN’S WILL

Helen had two children and five grandchildren. In 1881, she died while a resident of South Carolina. Her will directed that “the entire rest and residue” of her property be divided into two equal parts. She granted a life estate in one part to her son with the vested remainder to his three children. She granted a life estate in the remaining part to her daughter with the vested remainder to her daughter’s two children. Her will appointed Ellery Bray-ton and John Rankin as co-executors. Brayton probated her will in South Carolina, and afterwards, Rankin probated the will in Nueces County, Texas. After Rankin probated Helen’s will, he was substituted as the plaintiff in the 1879 Suit. Attorney Robert J. Kleberg represented Rankin in the 1879 Suit. During the pen-dency of the 1879 Suit, Richard King hired Kleberg as his attorney.

C. THE 1883 JUDGMENT

The 1879 Suit was settled by a consent judgment signed by the trial court on April 7, 1883 (“the 1883 Judgment”). The judgment stated, in part:

Plaintiff herein is entitled to recover one-half of the land sued for by the plaintiff ... but in consideration of the moneyed judgment hereinafter set out and rendered in favor of the Plaintiff and against the Defendant Richard King, it is now here, by consent of the parties herein, ordered adjudged and decreed by the court, that all the right title and interest of said estate of Helen B. Chapman, deceased, in and to the said grant originally made to Juan Men-diola be vested in Richard King the defendant herein, and that he be quieted in his possession of the said tract of land described in plaintiffs petition.... And it is now here further ordered adjudged and decreed that the Plaintiff do now have and recover of and from the Defendant Richard King the sum of ... $5811.75 ....

Critical to this case is the recitation that “Plaintiff herein is entitled to recover one-half of the land sued for.” The judgment set forth that Helen could only recover a one-fourth interest in the Rincon, that is, one-half of the one-half interest which she had sought to recover from King.

After entry of the judgment, Kleberg wrote a letter dated April 21, 1883, advising Ellery Brayton (the co-executor of Helen’s will) that “The claim was for 7,749 acres, but we could only show or prove [698]*698title in one-half, that is, 3,874½ acres,_” Appellants assert that the “one-half’ which Kleberg claimed he could not prove involved the undivided one-half interest in the Rincon conveyed to King and Chapman in the unrecorded Lewis Deed.

D. THE PRESENT SUIT

On April 20, 1995, appellants sued King-Ranch, Inc., King Ranch Oil & Gas, Inc., and numerous other defendants,3 asserting they are the record owners of an undivided one-half interest in the Rincon. They alleged that the 1883 Judgment was the result of a “conspiracy” between Richard King, Robert J. Kleberg, and others to deprive Helen Chapman’s children and grandchildren of their respective life estates and estates in remainder in the Rin-con by using, selling, leasing for oil and gas, and otherwise disposing of, the undivided interests of these co-tenants, and concealing this fraud, both actual and constructive. Appellants alleged, in part, that: (1) King and Kleberg entered the 1883 Judgment knowing that John Rankin had no authority from the probate court to settle the suit; (2) the conspirators concealed from the trial court that Helen’s grandchildren were minors, that they were indispensable parties to the 1879 Suit, and that the interests of these children as re-maindermen were without the protection of a guardian ad litem; (3) Kleberg misrepresented to Helen’s co-executor, Ellery Brayton, that-he could only prove title to one-half of the property that Helen sought to recover in the 1879 Suit;4 and (4) when Kleberg was acting for the Chapman Estate he was actually in the employ of Richard King as an attorney, and no disclosure of this relationship was made to the Chapman family.

Based on these allegations appellants sought a bill of review as a direct attack to set aside the 1883 Judgment. In the alternative, they asserted a trespass to try title claim, seeking to recover their title and possession to an undivided one-half interest in the Rincon. In the alternative to that claim, they asserted an action to quiet title.

E. STANDARD OF REVIEW

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
41 S.W.3d 693, 2001 WL 30620, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chapman-v-king-ranch-inc-texapp-2001.