Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Kirkindall

119 S.W.2d 731, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 184
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 28, 1938
DocketNo. 3323.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 119 S.W.2d 731 (Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Kirkindall) 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
Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Kirkindall, 119 S.W.2d 731, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 184 (Tex. Ct. App. 1938).

Opinion

O’QUINN, Justice.

As tried in the lower court, this was an action in trespass to try title, on petition and answer, by appellees, M. F. Kirkindall, et al. — more thah 3Q in number — heirs of Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Kirkindall, dec’d, against, appellants, Houston Oil Company of Texas, Republic Production Company, A. L. and J. L. Jones, J. W. Shine and J. F. Lindsey, to recover the title and possession of a certain triangular tract of land containing about 25 acres, a part of the B. F. Kirkindall homestead of 160 acres out of the Nelson and Brooks original surveys in Hardin County; the land in controversy was bounded on the west, for its full length, by the Silsbee-Spurger highway; on the north, a distance of about one-fifth of its W. B. line, by the N. B. line of the 160 acres; on the east, by a broken line made by the W. B. lines of subdivisions sold by Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Kirkindall out of the eastern portion of their homestead of 160 acres; this line on the south intersected the Silsbee-Spurger highway, the W. B. line of the tract of land in controversy. The land in controversy lies north and south, and from the north extends south about three-fourths of the distance across the 160 acres. Judgment was entered in the lower court, on an instructed verdict, in favor of appellees and against appellants for the title and possession of all the land in controversy, except certain mineral interests about which there is no controversy. From the judgment appellants have duly prosecuted their appeal to this court.

The issue of title grows out of the construction of a deed executed in 1918 to R. D. Kirkindall by the other heirs of Mr. and Mrs. Kirkindall, dec’d, wherein the land conveyed was described as follows:

“All that certain lot, tract or parcel of land situated in Hardin County, Texas, described as follows:
“1st Tract: Ten acres out of the O. C. Nelson League;
*732 “2nd Tract: Eight acres out of the Geo. W. Brooks League, adjoining each other on the north line of the Brooks and south line of the Nelson near the N. W. corner of the Brooks and S. W. corner of the Nelson and being a part of the B. F. Kirkin-dall 160-acre homestead survey in said Hardin County, and being the remaining part of said homestead tract after deducting the various tracts which the said B. F. Kirkindall and his wife, the said Rebecca Kirkindall, have heretofore sold from said homestead tract and being all the interest that we own in the same.”

In 1923 grantee, R. D. Kirkindall, by the same description conveyed this land to appellant Jones; the other appellants hold under Jones.

During their life time Mr. and Mrs. Kir-kindall, dec’d, acquired title to their homestead of 160 acres; appellees offered that title in evidence, and rested. Appellants then offered in evidence a series of deeds by Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Kirkindall, dec’d, which, when platted on to the 160 acres by their calls for course and distance, and by a partial survey on the ground by a competent surveyor, left remaining unsold the land in controversy and the two tracts hereinafter referred to as tract No. 1 and tract No. 2, lying west of the Silsbee-Spurger highway, adjacent to the northern end of the land in controversy; tract No. 1 on the Nelson survey, containing 7.2 acres, and tract No. 2, immediately south of tract No. 1 on the boundary line between the Brooks and the Nelson surveys, containing 10.9 acres; the southeast corner of these two tracts, construed as one tract, was in the Silsbee-Spurger highway, about two-thirds of the distance of the west boundary line of the land in controversy, measured from its N. W. corner.

On the trial, appellees contended, and the court by its instructed verdict accepted that contention, that tracts Nos. 1 and 2, as above described, lying west of the Silsbee-Spurger highway, was the land conveyed by the deed of the heirs to R. D. Kirkindall. Appellants contended that the description in the R. D. Kirkindall deed, calling for two tracts of land, was void for uncertainty; and that all of the unsold portion of the B. F. Kirkindall homestead passed to R. D. Kirkindall by his deed from the heirs.

By their fifth proposition, appellants insist that the court erred in not sending to the jury the issue of “bona fide purchaser”; this point is not before us by assignment of error. Appellants fail to make a statement from the pleadings and evidence, supporting this proposition as one of fundamental error.

Appellants have no proposition that the lower court erred in refusing to submit to the jury any issue of fact on the construction of the deed from the heirs to R. D. Kirkindall. It is their contention that the “unsold portion of the 160-acre tract” passed to R. D. Kirkindall by the deed executed to him by the heirs in 1918, and that they were entitled to an instructed verdict or the land in controversy for the following reasons:

(1) “A deed must be construed as a whole and effect given to the paramount intention therein expressed. It is clear that the evident intention of the parties to the instant deed was to convey the un-disposed of remainder of the 160-acre tract.”

(2) “Effect will be given to all valid descriptive elements in a deed and the imperfect matters of description disregarded. No tracts of 8 and 10 acres, or combination aggregating 18 acres, recited in said deed, can be identified or located but the unsold part of the 160 acres can be identified and located by deeds previously executed, which are referred to.”

(3) “Recitals as to quantity are last resorted to in identifying the property conveyed, and are never given paramount effect when such recitals are in conflict with the more dignified and reliable calls embraced in the deed.”

(4) “The aforementioned deed from the heirs of R. D. Kirkindall is sufficient to pass the entire unsold portion of the B. F. Kirkindall 160 acres, notwithstanding an excess in acreage when considered in connection with the plaintiffs’ testimony that they used the designation ‘8 acres, 10 acres’ because such designation was found on the tax renditions made by their father in the years immediately preceding his death, and shows their evident intention to part with all property owned by them by inheritance from their father in the said 160 acres, under the rule that a construction of a deed, which harmonizes all apparently conflicting elements, will be adopted.” v

The legal propositions invoked by appellants, -as general propositions of law, are sound; but on the facts of this case do not control the construction of the R. *733 D. Kirkindall deed. The facts, clearly established by the parol evidence, are as follows: In making their conveyance to R. D. Kirkindall the heirs thought that tracts Nos. 1 and 2 constituted all the unsold portion of the B. F. Kirkindall homestead of 160 acres, and in accepting his deed R. D. Kirkindall thought the heirs were conveying to him only tracts Nos. 1 and 2. At the time of their death Mr. and Mrs. Kirkindall thought that they had sold all their homestead except tracts Nos. 1 and 2; these two tracts were under fence and were cultivated, used and enjoyed by Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Kirkindall as their home, to the exclusion of all other portions of the original 160 acres. In rendering the land for taxes Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Kirkindall rendered it as tracts No. 1 and 2, as described in the R. D.

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119 S.W.2d 731, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 184, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/humble-oil-refining-co-v-kirkindall-texapp-1938.