Hooper v. Courtney

258 S.W.2d 124, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 1742
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 20, 1953
DocketNo. 6295
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 258 S.W.2d 124 (Hooper v. Courtney) 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
Hooper v. Courtney, 258 S.W.2d 124, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 1742 (Tex. Ct. App. 1953).

Opinion

MARTIN, Justice.

On a prior appeal of this cause of action, the judgment of the trial court was reversed and the cause remanded under certain points of error as revealed by the pri- or opinion of this court in Hooper v. Courtney, Tex.Civ.App., 256 S.W.2d 462. This report of the cause of action is referred to for a statement of the facts and issues as well as the prior rulings on certain of the points of error.

Appellant’s first, second, third, fourth, fifth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth points of error were overruled in the original opinion under appellant’s respective points of error there numbered as follows: three, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three and twenty-four. Such points will not be ruled on herein as the original judgment of this court was not appealed from and is binding on the appellant.

As pointed out in the original opinion, the five year statute of limitations, Art. 5509, will apply to adverse possession under a deed given in creation of a trust provided there is due proof of repudiation of the trust agreement by the trustee and notice thereof to the cestui que trust. Since both parties appear to question the above ruling as made in the original opinion they are referred to the citation of authorities in such opinion and particularly to Neyland v. Bendy, 69 Tex. 711, 7 S.W. 497, Syl. 2. In such opinion the Supreme Court spoke clearly upon the issue in the following language:

“The substance of the charge given was, if the deed was executed upon an agreement that defendant would re-convey the land to the plaintiff upon the happening of certain things, then defendant could not prescribe under the five-years statute, as against the plaintiff, until he had repudiated the trust, and made it known to plaintiff. We think there was no error in the charge as given”. [69 Tex. 711, 7 S.W. 500.]

It is apparent from this ruling of the Supreme Court that if the trustee had repudiated the trust and had made such repudiation known to the plaintiff that he could have correctly raised the issue of the five-year statute of limitations. The five-year statute of limitation as of the date of February 7, 1888, the date of the rendition of the opinion in Neyland v. Bendy, supra, was examined at the time of the drafting of the original opinion and such statute was found to be identical to the present five-year statute of limitation.

Under the authority above, as well as others cited in the original opinion, a ruling on appellant’s points six, seven, nine and ten on this appeal is dependent solely upon the issue of whether there is any evidence in this record that appellant Hooper repudiated the written trust agreement and made known such repudiation to his mother, Addie Lee Hooper, who became one of the beneficiaries of the original trust agreement upon the death of her husband, J. C. Hooper. As a counterpart of this issue, if there was evidence of repudiation of the trust agreement and that knowledge of such repudiation was brought home to Addie Lee Hooper, then the trial court erred in setting aside the jury findings to Special Issues Numbers 16, 17; 20, and 21 establishing the issue of repudiation and limitation title under the five-year statute of limita[126]*126tion. Also bound up in the same issues— if there Was no evidence of repudiation of the trust agreement and subsequent knowledge thereof brought home to Addie Lee Hooper, the trial court correctly accepted the jury’s answer to Special Issue Number 18 finding that Mrs. Hooper had no knowledge that Robert E. Hooper repudiated her rights in the land. Such issue would likewise not be a material one under this circumstance.

It must be noted that in the original opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals, as pointed out hereinabove, appellant’s points 9 and 10 were overruled under a 'finding by the court that “the evidence is not of sufficient probative force to support appellant’s claim of a verbal relinquishment by either J. C. Hooper or by Addie Lee Hooper * * [256 S.W.2d 468.] With the issue of verbal relinquishment disposed of as to both J. C. and Addie Lee Hooper, the issue as to whether or not there was a repudiation of the written trust agreement and knowledge of such repudiation brought home to J. C. Hooper and Addie Lee Hooper during their lifetimes is answered by an examination of the testimony of appellant, Robert E. Hooper. It is noteworthy that the jury found that the trust agreement was not repudiated by Robert E. Hooper as to ap-pellee M. E. Courtney even considering' appellant’s testimony as to his alleged verbal repudiation made to Courtney as follows: “If you are going to keep the warehouse, I will just keep the land and we will wipe the slate clean from here.” (Emphasis added.) This testimony quoted, to be discussed later in relation to other facts, is not entitled to any consideration whatsoever in determining whether appellant repudiated the trust agreement as to either J. C. Hooper, deceased, or as to his surviving wife, Addie Lee Hooper, since such statement was not made to either of the named persons. Further, although ruled on in the original opinion, an examination of the language above quoted reveals that the jury correctly found that appellant did not unequivocally repudiate the trust agreement as to M. E. Courtney.

The above evidence being ruled upon in the original opinion, and such issues concluded thereby, as well as the evidence in regard to the issue of a verbal relinquishment of the land by J. C. and Addie Lee Hooper, appellant’s testimony as to his asserted repudiation of his mother’s and his father’s interest in the trust property may be wholly summarized under the following items of evidence: (1) sale of the refinery equipment and division of the money therefrom; (2) sale of 3.2 acres of the trust property to the Alfalfa Milling Company; (3) renting of the land and collection of the rents and (4) alleged statements made by J. C. Hooper to appellant out of the presence of appellee and (5) alleged statements made by Addie Lee Hooper to appellant out of the presence of the appellee. These elements of asserted repudiation will be discussed hereinafter as numbered. But, it should be noted at this point that upon the above identical elements in evidence on the trial of the cause, further supplemented by appellant’s own testimony that he made a direct verbal repudiation as to appellee, M. E. Courtney, the jury found that appellant did not repudiate the trust agreement as to appellee Courtney. As stated at the time of oral submission, no sound basis exists for the proposition that on a given set of facts as to repudiation the jury can correctly find that such facts did not constitute a repudiation of the trust agreement as to one beneficiary of the trust and at the same time find the same, or less, facts did constitute a repudiation of the same trust agreement as to the other beneficiary.

The evidence as to the asserted repudiation will be detailed. First, an examination of the evidence as to element 1 of the asserted repudiation reveals there is no controversy in the record as to the sale of the refinery equipment, a part of the property subject to the trust, being made by agreement and plan of all parties to the trust agreement. Further, appellant divided the proceeds of this sale between the beneficiaries of the trust thereby recognizing that such act of sale was not a repudiation of the trust agreement but was in fact a recognition thereof. The record further reveals that the trust property was merely bought in by the parties in an attempt to [127]

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Bluebook (online)
258 S.W.2d 124, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 1742, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hooper-v-courtney-texapp-1953.