Hexter v. Pratt

283 S.W. 653, 1926 Tex. App. LEXIS 1141
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 27, 1926
DocketNo. 9484.
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 283 S.W. 653 (Hexter v. Pratt) 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
Hexter v. Pratt, 283 S.W. 653, 1926 Tex. App. LEXIS 1141 (Tex. Ct. App. 1926).

Opinion

VAUGHAN, J.

This is an appeal prosecuted through writ of error by J. K. Hexter and . M. C. Levi, plaintiffs in error, against Clarence EL Pratt and Mrs. Tennie L. Pratt, defendants in error, from an adverse judgment rendered Tune 10, 1924, refusing to foreclose an asserted deed of trust lien on certain real estate alleged to have been executed to secure the payment of the indebtedness for which judgment was rendered in favor of J. K. Hexter, one of the plaintiffs in error, against Mrs. Tennie B. Pratt, one of the defendants in error, for the sum of $6,003.54. The trial was before the court without the intervention of a jury.

For a proper understanding of the interests involved in and the attitude of the parties to the litigation in which the judgment appealed from was rendered, it is advisable, by way of introduction, to give a brief history in chronological order of the proceedings had in the three suits that were consolidated in the trial court:

On the 5th day of May, 1915, Mrs. Tennie D. Pratt filed her suit against C. E. Pratt in the Sixty-Eighth district court of Dallas county, numbered 19797C, in the form of an action of trespass to try title to recover a certain lot situated in the city and county of Dallas, and which will be designated in this opinion as lot A.

On the 15th day of May, 1915, the defendant in that suit filed his original answer, cross-action, and motion to dissolve the temporary writ of injunction that had been granted on the application of the plaintiff therein, and, at the same time, filed for record his lis pendens, in which the character of his claim of title to said lot was alleged as will be revealed latex-.

On the 15th day -of May, 1915, C. EL Pratt filed his suit No. 19897A against Mrs. Tennie L. Pratt, in the Fourteenth district court of Dallas county, to recover title to and possession of three certain tracts of land located in the city and county of Dallas, Tex., described by' appropiiate field notes in the petition in said cause, which lots will hereinafter be designated as lots B, O, and D. It was alleged in said petition that said lots B, O, and D were pui-chased by said C. E.. Pratt and paid for with his own private funds, receiving proper deed of conveyance to said lots, respectively, as same were purchased, whereby he became the fee-simple owner of and entitled to the possession of said lots; that at the time he purchased the lots he had the deeds conveying same executed to his mother, the said Mrs. Tennie B. Pratt, for temporary purposes, placing the title to said lots in her name, in trust, however, for his use and benefit. On the 15th day of May, 1915, said O. E. Pratt filed for record his lis pendens as to said three lots. On the 29th day of May, 1915, Mrs. Tennie B. Pratt filed her original answer. On June 18, 1915, an order was entered by the judge of the Sixty-Eighth district court transferring cause No. 19797C, Tennie L. Pratt v. O. E. Pratt, from the Sixty-Eighth district court to the Fourteenth district court, which' was consolidated with cause No. 19897A then pending in said Fourteenth district court.

On the 3d day of June, 1918, said G. E. Pratt filed his second amended original petition in consolidated cause No. 19897A, O. E. Pratt v. Tennie L. Pratt, pending in the Fourteenth district court, asserting title to the four lots, A, B, O, and D, alleging facts showing that 'he pxxrchased and paid for said lots, respectively, with his individual means, and that he thereby acquired the actual title to said lots through the deeds executed by his vendólas conveying said lots to his mother, Mrs. Tennie L. Pratt, in trust for his use and benefit.

On the 1st day of January, 1916, Mrs. Ten-nie L. Pratt filed her second amended original answer and cross-action in said cause No. 19S97A, claiming title in her own right to said four lots on the ground that she purchased and paid for them with her own means, and, further, that she had acquired title thereto by the statute of five years’ limitation.

On the 2d day of July, 1919, an order was entered by Hon. Ohas. A. Pippen, then and now a judge of one of the Criminal District Courts of Dallas county, dismissing said causes Nos. 19897A and 19797C from the docket of the district court of the Fourteenth district for want of prosecution. The order dismissing said cause containing the following recitation:

“Clarence E. Pratt (No. 19897A) v. Mrs. Ten-nie L. Pratt. On this the 28th day of July, this cause came on to be heai-d, and, it appearing that heretofore on the 18th day of June, 1915, cause No. 19797C/A, styled Mrs. Tennie L. Pratt v. Clarence E. Pratt, was transferred to this court and said cause consolidated with the above-entitled .cause. * * * ”

—from which we assume that said cause had been properly consolidated.

On the 4th day of November, 1920, said C. E. Pratt filed his motion in said consolidated cause No. 19897A to set aside the order of dismissal, and to reinstate said cause on the docket of the court. Under the view we take of this case, it is not necessary to discuss the grounds contained in said motion, therefore same will not be hei-e presented; it being sufficient to say that, in our judgment, same was sufficient to justify the court in making and entering the oi’der on the 16th day of November, 1920, setting aside the order dismissing said cause and reinstating same on the docket of the court for trial as though the *655 order dismissing same. had never been entered.

On the 17th day of January, 1922, plaintiffs in error, J. K. Hexter and M. O. Levi, filed their original petition in the Sixty-Eighth district court of Dallas county against defendants in error Tennie L. Pratt and C. E. Pratt, being cause No. 416480 on the ¿octet of said court, to recover on a note in the sum of $4,000 alleged to have been executed by Mrs. Tennie L. Pratt, payable to J. K. Hexter, of date November 19, 1919, and due three years after date, and to foreclose a deed of trust lien on the four lots involved in this appeal; it being alleged that the lien so sought to be enforced and foreclosed was created and existed by virtue of a certain deed of trust executed by the said Mrs. Ten-nie L. Pratt to said M. O. Levi as- trustee, for the use and benefit of the said J. K. Hex-ter, to secure the payment of the above mentioned note.

On the 4th day of December, 1923, O. E. Pratt filed his first amended original answer in said cause No. 416430, presenting several pleas, of which it is only necessary to notice the plea alleging the facts showing that he was the owner] of the four lots on which plaintiffs sought to foreclose deed of trust lien in said suit, having purchased and paid the consideration for each one of said lots out of his own means and funds; that through the deeds executed to the said Mrs. Tennie L. Pratt conveying said lots he acquired the actual title to said lots, as same had been conveyed to her in trust for his use and benefit, and that before and at the time of execution of the deed of trusfc by Mrs. Tennie L. Pratt, under which the deed of trust lien is alleged to exist and sought to be foreclosed, the said J. K. Hexter had actual notice of said defendant’s claim of title to said lots, or of facts sufficient to put a reasonably prudent person upon inquiry, and that if he had pursued same he would have discovered that said C. E. Pratt was the owner of said lots. Therefore he is not an innocent lienholder for value, and not entitled to foreclose any lien on said lots, or any part thereof.

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Bluebook (online)
283 S.W. 653, 1926 Tex. App. LEXIS 1141, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hexter-v-pratt-texapp-1926.