Fleming v. Miller

228 S.W.2d 355, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 1966
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided March 17, 1950·No. 2746·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinions

LONG, Justice.

This is a suit in trespass to try title involving the minerals in approximately 400 acres of land in the Wm. Shipp League, Comanche County, Texas. The plaintiffs are the heirs of J. Doss Miller, Sr. The defendants are the heirs at law of J. R. Fleming, Alex Booth and Daniel Wise, except the defendant Kelsey, who is an assignee of certain mineral interests from the Fleming and Wise heirs. Upon a trial before the court without a jury, plaintiffs recovered all of the minerals in and under said land. Defendants have appealed.

There is very little dispute as to the facts, the evidence being largely documentary. James C. Walker is the common source of title. On October 21, 1887, Walker conveyed the east one-third of the Wm. Shipp Survey (and other lands) to J. R. Fleming, retaining a vendor’s lien to secure three notes due one, two and three years from date. There is no deed in the record from Fleming to Alex Booth but the trial court found that Fleming did convey to Alex Booth an undivided one-half interest in the' land, retaining a vendor’s lien on such one-half interest to secure six notes aggregating $9,500.00. This finding has support in the evidence.

On February 8, 1890, Fleming and Booth executed a general warranty deed conveying the property to Daniel Wise for a recited consideration of $14,870.00 paid and the assumption by Wise of all liens against the land and in which deed Fleming and Booth reserved one-half of the minerals in and under said land.

On March 18, 1890, Daniel Wise conveyed the same land to Henry W. Dayton, for a recited consideration of $15,000.00 paid, and assumption by Dayton of all indebtedness against said land in which deed Wise attempted to reserve one-half of the minerals under the land. Thereafter, on December 7, 1891, Dayton executed to Abraham C. Bernheim of New York, trustee, a deed of trust covering the land involved to secure three notes owned by H. B. Cloflin & Company, executed by Fleming, payable to Walker and secured by vendor’s lien on the land and six notes owned by Hecht Bros, executed by Booth payable to Fleming and secured by vendor’s lien on the land. On May 8, 1901, J. A. Holman, substitute trustee under the aforesaid deed of trust, executed a trustee’s deed to Joseph M. Herman conveying the entire east one-third of the Wifl. Shipp Survey, of which the land in controversy is a part.

Thereafter, on February 11, 1904, and on February 2, 1905, respectively, Joseph M. [357] Herman, as trustee, executed two deeds to J. Doss Miller covering the two tracts of land involved in this suit.

The trial court found that the deed from Wise to Dayton contained a general warranty clause but that the County Clerk in recording the instrument, erroneously failed to record a portion of the warranty clause, which was a clerical error on his part and which mistake was first discovered during the trial of this case. Defendants contend that the evidence is insufficient to sustain such finding. The original deed from Wise to Dayton was not introduced in evidence and it was established that it could not be found. We have before us a photostatic copy of the deed as it appears of record in Comanche County. This deed shows upon its face that the Deputy County Clerk who recorded it in longhand made several errors in such recording. A portion of a general warranty provision was recorded by the Clerk and we believe the trial court was justified in concluding that part of the warranty clause was omitted. ' The deed shows on its face immediately after the place where the general warranty would usually be found, the following statement, “But it is expressly understood and agreed that this warranty does not extend to nor include any lien on said land now in existence and that said grantee herein, Henry W. Dayton, agrees to assume and pay off any and all liens on the several tracts of land aforesaid.” We believe the evidence sustains the trial court in concluding that the expression, “this warranty,” evidently referred back to the general warranty which was in the original deed but a portion of which was left unrecorded by the clerk. If the deed contained a general warranty, then the attempted reservation by Wise of one-half the minerals is ineffective. We believe that the law as announced by our Supreme Court in the case of Duhig v. Peavy-Moore Lumber Co., Inc., 135 Tex. 503, 144 S.W.2d 878, is decisive of this point. The deed from Wise to Dayton contained the following statement, “And it is expressly agreed and understood that the said Daniel Wise, grantor herein, retains and reserves one-half of all the rights to any minerals or coal lying beneath the surface of any of said tracts of land and also all rights necessary to mine, work and develop the same and to prepare the same for market.” •Fleming and Booth reserved- one-half of the minerals in their deed to Wise. There-? fore, when Wise conveyed the land to Dayton he did not own but one-half the minerals thereunder. The deed from Wise to Dayton purported to convey all the interest in the land except the one-half interest in the minerals .reserved by Wise. He only owned one-half of the minerals. If we should construe the deed to mean that Wise retained unto himself one-half of the minerals, then Dayton only acquired the surface of the land. By the granting clause of the deed, Wise conveyed a fee-simple title to all of the land, therefore, when we give effect to the law as announced by our Supreme Court in Duhig v. Peavy-Moore Lumber Co., Inc., supra, we hold that Dayton acquired the land and one-half the minerals. The trial court did not err in vesting the title to one-half the minerals in plaintiffs.

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