Davis v. Thomas

548 S.W.2d 755, 1977 Tex. App. LEXIS 2632
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 27, 1977
Docket983
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 548 S.W.2d 755 (Davis v. Thomas) 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
Davis v. Thomas, 548 S.W.2d 755, 1977 Tex. App. LEXIS 2632 (Tex. Ct. App. 1977).

Opinions

McKAY, Justice.

Marvin Thomas, Guardian of the Estate of Dan D. Davis, Sr., Incompetent, filed a petition in the Probate Court Number Two of Dallas County, in which court the guardianship was pending, to cancel one deed from Dan D. Davis, Sr., to Paul Davis to a house and lot in Garland, and to cancel two deeds from Dan D. Davis, Sr., to John Henry Davis covering four tracts of land in Hunt County. It was alleged that Dan D. Davis, Sr., was 93 years of age, unable to comprehend his rights or manage his property and that Paul Davis and John Henry Davis used undue influence on him to cause him to execute such deeds. The petition was filed on November 25, 1975, and on January 8, 1976, the Probate Court rendered a default judgment for Thomas, Guardian, cancelling the deeds and removing the cloud on the title of all of the tracts of land. John Henry Davis and Paul Davis appeal from the default judgment and the order overruling their motion for new trial.

Appellants, John Henry Davis and Paul Davis, in their first point complain that the trial court “committed fundamental error in purporting to render a default judgment” because the court was without jurisdiction to render such judgment. The suit to cancel deeds bears number 75-2959-P/2-A, while the guardianship proceeding bears the number 75-2959-P/2.

Art. V, Sec. 16, Constitution of Texas, provides that the county court “shall not have jurisdiction of suits for the recovery of land.”

Art. 1951, V.A.C.S., provides that “the county court shall not have jurisdiction of suits of the recovery of lands

Art. 5, Sec. 8 of the Constitution of Texas, provides that the district court shall have original jurisdiction “ . . .of all suits for trial of title to land and for the [758]*758enforcement of liens thereon.” Art. 1906, V.A.C.S., contains the same language verbatim.

An amendment to Art. V, Section 8 of the Constitution was adopted November 6, 1973, which provided in part:

“The district court, concurrently with the county court, shall have the general jurisdiction of a probate court. . . . The legislature, however, shall have the power, by local or general law, Section 16 of Article V of this Constitution notwithstanding, to increase, diminish or eliminate the jurisdiction of either the district court or the county court in probate matters, and in cases of any such change of jurisdiction, the legislature shall also confirm the jurisdiction of the other courts to such change.”

Section 5 of the Texas Probate Code was amended effective November 6, 1973, to provide in subdivision (d):

“All courts exercising original probate jurisdiction shall have the power to hear all matters incident to an estate, including but not limited to all claims by or against an estate, all actions for trial of title to land incident to an estate and for the enforcement of liens thereon incident to an estate [and of] all actions for trial of the right of property incident to an estate.” (Emphasis added.)

By an amendment in 1975, “and actions to construe wills” was added.

It will be noted from the above listed provisions of the Constitution and statutes that the county court “shall not have jurisdiction of suits for the recovery of land,” and that the district court “shall have original jurisdiction ... of all suits for the trial of title to land . . . .” By amendment to Art. V, Sec. 8 of the Constitution the legislature was authorized “to increase, diminish or eliminate the jurisdiction of either the district court or the county court in probate matters,” and such amendment contained the language “Section 16, of Article V of this Constitution notwithstanding,” but it did not affirmatively repeal Section 16, Article V.

Furthermore, the amendment to Section 5 of the Probate Code, which authorizes the district court to have “original control and jurisdiction over executors, administrators, guardians and wards under such regulations as may be prescribed by law,” did not repeal Art. 1906 or Art. 1951.

It is unquestioned that prior to November 6, 1973, a county court or a probate court did not have any jurisdiction to try questions of title to land. Doggett v. Nitschke, 498 S.W.2d 339 (Tex.1973).

Appellants argue that for the probate court to have jurisdiction of the instant case it must be shown that the suit to cancel two deeds was an action incident to an estate, and if such suit was not incident to the guardianship of the Estate of Dan D. Davis, Sr., that is, a separate suit to cancel deeds, then the probate court is without jurisdiction. Appellants also contend that appellee has admitted and bound himself, in his motion to strike the guardianship proceeding from the record on appeal, that the guardianship records “are instruments in a separate cause of action . . . .”

The word “incident” has been defined as “belonging, pertaining, appertaining, accessory, relating, natural,” Soule’s Dictionary of English Synonyms, Bonanza Books, 1959, “something dependent on or subordinate to something else of greater or principal importance; dependent on or relating to another thing.” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Co., 1969. Words and Phrases, Vol. 20A, p. 17, PP, defines incident as “something dependent upon, appertaining or subordinate to, or accompanying something else of greater or principal importance.” We are of the opinion that a suit to cancel a deed executed by a ward alleged to be incompetent is an action pertaining to or related to or involved in or with a guardianship proceeding and is, therefore, incident to the guardianship estate. We hold, therefore, that the probate court had jurisdiction of the suit to cancel the deeds from the ward. It is noted that the trial court in the instant case is a statutory probate court and not a constitutional county court.

[759]*759In Parr et al. v. White, Administratrix et al., 543 S.W.2d 440, Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi, delivered October 29, 1976, the court held that suits “seeking to either recover possession of, clear title to, or collect damages for the conversion of property” to determine whether the property was community were incident to the administration and partition of an estate of a deceased person, and the probate court had jurisdiction of such actions. The trial court was not a constitutional county court.

The Corpus Christi Court of Civil Appeals in Folliott v. Bozeman, 526 S.W.2d 577 (1975, writ ref’d n. r. e.), also held that the district court and the probate court had concurrent jurisdiction of a suit to cancel a trustee’s deed which involved property of a deceased whose estate was in administration. The trial court was not a constitutional county court.

We are not in agreement with the argument of appellants that because appel-lee styled, numbered or admitted the suit in the probate court to cancel deeds was a separate action that such admission or act would divest the probate court of jurisdiction.

Nor do we agree with appellants’ contention that the probate court was without jurisdiction because the effective date of Art. V, Sec. 8 of the Constitution and Sec. 5 of the Probate Code was subsequent to the date of execution of the deeds sought to be set aside.

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Davis v. Thomas
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Bluebook (online)
548 S.W.2d 755, 1977 Tex. App. LEXIS 2632, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-thomas-texapp-1977.