Huggins v. White

27 S.W. 1066, 7 Tex. Civ. App. 563, 1894 Tex. App. LEXIS 355
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 20, 1894
DocketNo. 1136.
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 27 S.W. 1066 (Huggins v. White) 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
Huggins v. White, 27 S.W. 1066, 7 Tex. Civ. App. 563, 1894 Tex. App. LEXIS 355 (Tex. Ct. App. 1894).

Opinion

TARLTON, Chief Justice.

Prior to November 30, 1883, C. C. White, GL W. Barefoot, and J. C. Bryant, as partners, owned 7755 acres of land, in controversy in this suit, lying in Clay County, and off the east side of the Cherokee County school land survey of 17,712 acres, situated in Clay and Wichita Counties.

O. C. White owned a half interest in the tract, the remainder being owned by Barefoot and Bryant, the other members of the firm. On the day named, White conveyed his one-half interest to Barefoot and Bryant for $4 per acre, retaining a vendor’s lien in his deed to secure the deferred payments of the purchase money. When White sold and conveyed the land to Barefoot & Bryant, they gave him a mortgage on the entire tract to secure the purchase money, and also to secure other debts, the entire amount being $90,000. The mortgage was properly recorded in Clay County on the 7th day of January, 1884.

On the 22nd day of May, 1885, in the District Court of Bed Biver County, the Bed Biver County Bank, as plaintiff, recovered, in cause number 5120, from John M. Jones, J. L. Huggins, and J. C. Bryant, as defendants, the sum of $9376.29. The note was signed by these three defendants jointly, and the judgment was had against them as joint principals. There was nothing in the record showing that J. L. Huggins and J. C. Bryant signed the note as sureties only. An abstract of this judgment was filed in Clay County on June 9, 1885.

On October 15, 1891, J. L. Huggins filed in cause number 5120, for the first time, a motion setting up the fact that J. L. Huggins and J. C. Bryant were only sureties on the note sued on. ^Neither J. M. Jones, at that date deceased, nor his legal representatives nor heirswere made a party to this proceeding. An order was entered by the court at its -Term, 1892, directing execution to issue against J. C. Bryant for the benefit of J. L. Huggins.

The judgment in cause number 5120 was paid off and satisfied on and before the 10th day of September, 1887, though this fact was not made to appear upon the records. On February 10, 1892, execution was issued by the District Court of Bed Biver County in cause number 5120 for the benefit of J. L. Huggins. It was levied on the land involved, by the sheriff of Clay County, on the 8th day of March, 1892, and on the 5th day of April, 1892, the land was sold by the sheriff and bid in by W. J. Swayne for C. C. White.

Plaintiff in this cause did not know of the judgment of the District Court of Bed Biver County, directing the execution to issue, and he did not know of the execution, until about half an hour before the sale was made by the sheriff of Clay County; and he refused to take the land under the execution sale, or to pay the bid.

*566 . On the 8th day of October, 1885, the firm of Barefoot & Bryant had. become insolvent; and still owing C. C. White for the purchase mouey of the land, and for other debts included in the mortgage, the sum of $80,000, then to a great extent past due, Barefoot & Bryant on that day conveyed to C. C. White the land in controversy, at the price of $3.50 per acre, in satisfaction of the purchase money and a large portion of the other indebtedness, amounting in all to $73,276. C. C. White took the land in satisfaction of the debt thus owed him by the firm of Barefoot & Bryant, and the price allowed them for the land was more than it was worth at that time. The land—the partnership property of the insolvent firm of Barefoot & Bryant—was thus conveyed, at a fair price, to O. C. White, in payment of the debt that the firm owed him.

The court, in accordance with the prayer of the plaintiff, perpetuated an injunction previously granted, restraining the defendant from levying upon the land in controversy an execution issued or to be issued out of the District Court of Bed Biver County in cause number 5120, on the judgment referred to; and further, restraining the sheriff from executing a deed conveying the land to J. L. Huggins, and from proceeding in the sale or the readvertisement of the land under execution.

Opinion.—The court found as a conclusion of fact—as do we, adopting its conclusion—that the judgment in question was paid off and satisfied on or before the 10th day of September, 1887. As this finding-may perhaps be considered as involving a mixed question of law and fact, it is probably due to the appellant that we state the evidence on which the conclusion is founded, to the end that, on an application for a writ of error, he may not be concluded by our finding of fact. The evidence on which this conclusion is founded is as follows:

The witness M. L. Simms, president of the Bed Biver County Bank, testified, that the judgment in this cause has been paid, “stating the payments and the dates thereof as set out in the copy of the execution docket. The payment of $3136.50 was paid to the bank by J. M. Jones in cattle. * * * They were placed in possession of J. L. Huggins, he agreeing- to keep them for a specified sum. The cattle were afterwards sold to Huggins by the bank. The judgment was transferred to Huggins by the Bed Biver County Bank, November 18, 1887.”

D. W. Cheatham, the cashier of the bank, testified, that “ J. L. Huggins proposed to the bank that, if they would turn him over the Jones cattle, and transfer him the judgment, he would give us $5000. The bank accepted the proposition, and Mr. Huggins paid $2000, and after-wards, in November, 1887, he paid the balance, $3000.” This was in • satisfaction of the judgment of Bed Biver County Bank v. John M. Jones, J. L. Huggins, and J. C. Bryant, in cause 5120. J. L. Huggins does not testify in the case.

*567 Conceding that Huggins will be permitted to occupy the position of a surety with reference to this judgment, it does not follow, we think, that the payment of the amount remaining due on the judgment would necessarily entitle him to subrogation.

The right to subrogation seems, when recognized at all, to depend upon the intention of the debtor in making the payment. Freem. on Judg., sec. 472.

While there was a transfer of the judgment to Mr. Huggins in this case, we are not prepared to say that this fact required the trial court to infer an intention on his part to secure the right of subrogation by making the payment, in view of the fact that he abstained from testifying as to his intention, and in view of the further fact that he made this payment in part consideration, at least, of cattle which Jones, the deceased principal in the judgment, had previously paid to the bank, and that, in the language of the witness Mr. Cheatham, payment was made “in full satisfaction of the judgment.”

The question of the intention with which this payment was made was one of fact, to be drawn by the trial court; and his conclusion, to the effect that the payment was made in satisfaction of the judgment, will not be disturbed by us.

In National Bank v. Dougherty, 81. Texas, 301, our Supreme Court held that, where execution was levied upon property of one of the defendants, who, to save the property from sale, paid the judgment and took a transfer of it, such payment satisfied the judgment, which would not thereafter support an execution. It follows, that there was no basis for the execution in this case.

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Bluebook (online)
27 S.W. 1066, 7 Tex. Civ. App. 563, 1894 Tex. App. LEXIS 355, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/huggins-v-white-texapp-1894.