Henderson v. Texas Moline Plow Co.

211 S.W. 973, 109 Tex. 466, 1919 Tex. LEXIS 81
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedMay 14, 1919
DocketNo. 2705.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 211 S.W. 973 (Henderson v. Texas Moline Plow Co.) 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
Henderson v. Texas Moline Plow Co., 211 S.W. 973, 109 Tex. 466, 1919 Tex. LEXIS 81 (Tex. 1919).

Opinion

Mr. Justice GREENWOOD

delivered the opinion of the court.

On July 15, 1907, defendant in error, Texas Moline Plow Company, recovered a judgment in the District Court of Eastland County against T. B. Roberds and others for $3631.79, which is credited with payments of $503.60 on Hovember 5, 1907, and of $200 on May 7, 1912. This judgment was duly abstracted in Eastland County on July 6, 1908.

Since prior to the date of the judgment until Hovember, 1910, T.B. Roberds and family occupied as their residence homestead a certain improved lot in the town of Bising Star, in Eastland County. Having been elected county tax assessor in November, 1910, T. B. Roberds then moved with his family to Eastland, and since that time there has been no actual occupancy of the Bising Star property, by any of the family of T. B. Roberds.

It is undisputed that until the Hovember election, 1912, when T. B. Boberds was re-elected county tax assessor, it was his fixed intention *469 to again use the Bising Star property as the family home, at the expiration of his term of office.

On or about the date of the election in November, 1912, T. B. Roberds and W. D. Gryder agreed to an exchange of the Bising Star property, belonging to Roberds, for a farm in Eastland County, belonging to Gryder. With a view to accomplishing this exchange, T. B. Roberds, on November 12, 1912, signed and acknowledged a deed to the Bising Star property, from himself and wife to W. D.' 'Gryder. The deed was not signed by Roberds’ wife because she was then on a visit to Arizona, where she was joined soon after the date of the deed by T. B. Roberds.

About December 6, 1912, T. B. Boberds purchased for $1000 the improvements on 320 acres of government land in Arizona, and filed his application to purchase same under an Act of Congress, stating under oath that the appnlication was made in good faith to obtain a home for himself.

On December 21, 1912, Boberds’ wife signed and acknowledged the deed to Gryder to the Bising Star property. On January 3, 1913, the exchange between Gryder and Boberds was consummated by the delivery to Gryder of the deed to the Bising Star property and to Boberds of the deed to the Eastland County farm. The deeds were exchanged, by agreement of the parties, through Joe Burkett, who received the deed to Gryder about January 3, 1913, and who received the deed to Boberds some two or three weeks previously.

■ The evidence was undisputed that when the exchange was agreed on Boberds intended to make his home on the 160 acres he was to get from Gryder, upon the expiration of his term of office. There was abundant, through not conclusive, evidence that after November 15, 1912, and prior to January 3, 1913, T. B. Boberds had determined to make his home on the 320 acres in Arizona, and had formed the definite intention, with the concurrence of his wife, not to again use the Bising Star property as his home.

On April 26, 1913, an execution, issued on the judgment in favor of the Texas Moline Plow Company against T. B. Botierds and others, was levied on the Rising Star property, which had been conveyed by W. D. Gryder to plaintiff in error W. H. Henderson, who thereupon brought this suit to enjoin the sale of said property under said execution and levy, under averments that the property had continued to be the homestead of T. B. Roberds until the title passed from him to W. D. Gryder, and that since this fact did not appear of record, the execution sale would cast a cloud on the title acquired by plaintiff in error under Gryder.

Defendant in error, Texas Moline Plow Company, denied the averments on which plaintiff in error relied -for the injunction, and plead an abandonment of the Rising Star property as the homestead of T. B. Roberds before he parted with the title to same, and prayed for judgment foreclosing the lien claimed to have been acquired on said property by the record of the abstract of the judgment.

*470 The case was submitted on special issues, the jury finding, as follows: first, that the Rising Star property was the homestead of T. B. Roberds and wife at the time of its sale to W. D. Gryder, the jury being instructed that the sale was made when the essential elements of the deal were agreed on and the papers prepared, with the only thing undone being to pass the title papers; second, that the Rising Star property was abandoned as a homestead by T. B. Roberds on or about November 12, 1912, the jury being instructed that Roberds’ temporary removal to the county seat, after his election, with the intention of returning to the Rising Star property on the expiration of his-term of office, would not constitute an abandonment of this property as his homestead, but that it would constitute an abandonment of the homestead for Roberds to acquire a new homestead in the county seat, or for Roberds to remove to the county seat with no intention of returning to his former homestead at the expiration of his term of office; third, that T. B. Roberds formed the intention of acquiring a homestead in Arizona on or about December 6, 1912; fourth, that the deed of T. B. Roberds and wife to W. D. Gryder was delivered on or about January 3, 1913; and, fifth, that the statements in the application of T. B. Roberds to purchase the 320 acres of land in Arizona, on or about December 7, 1912, were true at the time they were made

On these findings the trial court gave judgment for plaintiff in error, enjoining the sale of the Rising Star property under the judgment of the Texas Moline Plow Company. This judgment is based on the jury’s first finding, construed as meaning that Roberds had not abandoned the Rising Star homestead at the date on which it was conveyed to W. D. Gryder.

The Court of Civil Appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment and rendered judgment for defendant in error, holding that, in the light of the court’s charge, the findings of the jury showed an abandonment of the Rising Star homestead by T. B. Roberds prior to January 3, 1912, and that no sale of the homestead having been made prior to that date, the judgment lien attached, and should be enforced. 168 S. W., 414.

The law is perfectly plain that the residence of T. B. Roberds at Rising Star did not lose its homestead character until the discontinuance of its use was coupled with an intention not again to use it for the purposes of a home. Archibald v. Jacobs, 69 Texas, 251, 6 S. W., 177;' Hudgins v. Thompson, 109 Texas, 433, 211 S. W„ 586. T. B. Roberds could not, however, have the hona fide intention not to return to the Rising Star property, without immediately subjecting same to the payment of his debts, including the duly abstracted judgment of the Texas Moline Plow Company. Woolfolk v. Rickets, 41 Texas, 362; Tackaberry v. Bank, 85 Texas, 493, 22 S. W., 151, 299.

Dnder the undisputed facts, title to the Rising Star property did not pass from Roberds until the deed by Roberds and wife was delivered to Gryder. Croom v. Cotton Co., 15 Texas Civ. App., 328, 40 S. *471 W., 147. It was always stipulated that the title was to pass only through mutual deeds.

The case presented a single and simple issue, towit: was the property in controversy abandoned by Roberds as a homestead prior to his exchange of deeds with Gryder?

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Bluebook (online)
211 S.W. 973, 109 Tex. 466, 1919 Tex. LEXIS 81, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/henderson-v-texas-moline-plow-co-tex-1919.