Jackson v. Watson

10 S.W.2d 977
CourtTexas Commission of Appeals
DecidedNovember 28, 1928
DocketNo. 836-4898
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 10 S.W.2d 977 (Jackson v. Watson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Commission of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jackson v. Watson, 10 S.W.2d 977 (Tex. Super. Ct. 1928).

Opinion

LBDDY, J.

On February 8, 1912, J. C. Jackson executed a deed by which he conveyed to C. Y. Jackson 42.74 acres of land situated in Delta county, Tex. This suit was brought by E. B. Jackson, as next friend of J. C. Jackson, to set aside such deed and Subsequent conveyances made thereunder, on the ground that at the time of the execution of such deed Jackson was mentally incompetent.

Based upon favorable findings of the jury, in the answer to special issues, the trial court rendered judgment canceling said deed; and subsequent conveyances made thereunder, and also adjudicated the question of rents and improvements, in accordance with the findings of the jury. Upon appeal the Court of Civil Appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court, and rendered judgment in favor of defendants in error; the basis of such reversal being that there was no evidence of probative force tending to show that Jackson was mentally incapable of binding himself by contract at the very time he executed the deed (294 S. W. 328).

'A great deal of testimony was introduced concerning Jackson’s mental condition before and after the execution of the deed in question, some nine lay witnesses and four physicians, testifying as to his mental condition. "We quote the following from the statement of the case made by the Court of Civil Appeals, which fairly summarizes the evidence on this issue offered by plaintiff in error:

“It seems from testimony heard at the trial that in a fight appellee engaged in when he was 16 or 17 years of age some one hit him on the head with a billiard cue, and that afterwards, and to the time of the trial, he suffered from epilepsy. He and the witness Mary Branham were married in March, 1898, when she was 17 years of age and he was 10 or 12 years older. Mrs. Branham testified that she and appellee lived together until 1906, when he was sent to the State Epileptic Colony at Abilene, where he afterward remained. She was divorced from him in 1909 and never saw him between the time when he was sent to said colony and the time of the trial, except for about one hour in 1907, when he visited his home in Delta County. She testified that the first she knew of ap-pellee’s being an epileptic was when he had a" fit about three weeks after they were married. Afterwards, she said, he had fits as often as every ten days or two weeks, and she had known him to have as many as four in one week. The ‘spells’ increased in frequency and lasted longer, she said, as time passed. She had known one of them to last as long as three days, she said. Appellee smoked cigarettes ‘all the time,’ she said, and drank intoxicating liquor— ‘would get drunk every three or four weeks.’ Describing conduct of appellee while she lived with him, Mrs. Branham said he would move the furniture from one place to another in the house when there was no reason for doing so; would wander-around the yard all day and pick up worthless articles which he said should he taken care of; would leave home, without saying anything to any one about his intention to do so, and sometimes stay away as long as two or three weeks, and when he returned act ‘as unconcerned as if he had not been anywhere at all, just as though he had been around the place all the time’; on one occasion hitched his horse to a buggy and droye to Honey Grove and came back home on a railway train, unconscious of the fact that he had gone there in the buggy and left it and the horse there unattended to; on another occasion dressed completely, except he left off- his pants, to go somewhere, and left home without his pants, when she followed him in a buggy and took him back home ‘just as unconcerned as if he was fully dressed;’ on other occasions, when plowing, would drop his plow lines, and leaving his team hitched to the cultivator, would get his horse and go to town; would take a notion to move from where they were living with his father and mother, and, without saying anything to any one, get a wagon and begin loading things on it and move them to a small vacant house on his father’s place; in about three weeks would move back to his father’s home and never mention about having moved away; on one occasion he went to the cow lot, caught the cow, put a bridle and saddle on her, and declared he was going to town, ‘just as unconcerned as if he was riding a horse;’ was ‘always hunting and uneasy about something;’ would pick up waste paper, count things, flies, for instance, and on one occasion got a comb and brush hanging on the wall, placed same under a box, and asked the witness to sit and watch them because they were valuable and he didn’t want any one to get them. At times, Mrs. Branham said, appellee would declare he was ‘going to clean up things,’ and would ‘take the poker or anything and wave it around over the house;’ would get his gun and shoot up through the ceiling of the house, and on one occasion shot at his father and at witness’ foot; had the shooting spells about every two months. While witness and appellee were temporarily at Fort Worth, ap-pellee, without her knowledge, took their son, then about four years old, to a railway depot and left him asleep behind a barrel, where she afterwards found him; and on another occasion, without telling her he meant to do so, took the boy away from their home and kept him all night.. The witness said she never knew ap-pellee to do a day’s work, but also testified that he worked for about six weeks at a nursery, where' he, was paid $3 a day. However, she said the work he did there was gathering beans and other vegetables, which he was supposed to sort out, but which he mixed together and she had to separate same. Mrs. Branham testified further that appellee on one occasion whipped their son with a rope, and had slapped her jaws ‘and such as that.’ Appellee was finally taken into custody by their neighbors, the witness said, and was confined in jail until he was sent to said colony at Abilene. In jail he refused to eat until he accumulated a great quantity of food, and then would ‘eat like a hog.’ He paid no attention to witness nor their son when they visited him in the jail, and in 1907 when she and their son were with him about [979]*979an hour. On the facts stated by her and knowledge she acquired while she lived with appellee, Mrs. Branham was of the opinion, she testified. that he was of unsound mind when he executed the deed to his- mother, C. V. Jackson, February 8, 1912, and was not then ‘mentally capable (quoting) to know and understand and appreciate his property rights.’ Six or seven other persons who knew appellee before he was sent to Abilene, in 1906, testified to conduct of his similar to that detailed by Mrs. Bran-ham, and said they, too, were of the opinion appellee on said February 8, 1912, was not mentally capable of transacting business of any kind; and this opinion was concurred in by three or four physicians who testified in reply to hypothetical questions propounded to them. Some of the witnesses who testified as experts had never seen appellee, and none of the witnesses (except Dr. T. B. Bass) who testified as to his mental condition ever saw him after he was sent to Abilene in 1906, except for a few days in the fall of 1911, when he visited his home in Delta County. Dr. T. B. Bass, above referred to, was the superintendent of the State Epileptic Colony at Abilene and had known and treated appellee from the time he became an inmate of the colony to the time of the trial. Dr. Bass testified by deposition. He said appellee’s mental condition on February 8, 1912, the day he executed the deed to his mother, C. V. Jackson, was good. In reply to cross-interrogatories propounded to him by appellee, Dr. Bass testified as follows:
“ ‘I saw or examined J. C.

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Bluebook (online)
10 S.W.2d 977, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jackson-v-watson-texcommnapp-1928.