Lutcher & Moore Lumber Co. v. Vargo

76 S.W.2d 572
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 15, 1934
DocketNo. 2593
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 76 S.W.2d 572 (Lutcher & Moore Lumber Co. v. Vargo) 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
Lutcher & Moore Lumber Co. v. Vargo, 76 S.W.2d 572 (Tex. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinion

WALKER, Chief Justice.

On the 8th day' of December, 1930, Mrs. Ada Vargo and her husband, Joe Vargo, as plaintiffs, instituted this suit in district court of Orange county against Dutch er-Moore Lumber Company, a corporation, to recover the title and possession of 3.29 acres of land, a part of the Joseph Richie survey, in Orange county. They pleaded the usual allegations in trespass to try title and the statute of limitation of ten years. By an amended petition filed on the 5th day of February, 1932, plaintiffs, holding under a warranty deed from P. J. Lartigue, made him also a party defendant on his warranty. By a second amended original petition filed the 29th day of September, 1933, plaintiffs, as against the corporation defendant, pleaded also for their improvements made in good faith. The answer of the corporation defendant was by general demurrer, general denial, and not guilty. The answer of Lartigue was by general and special demurrer, general denial, and a special plea that “the plaintiffs brought this suit without any cause or reason.” On trial to the court without a jury, judgment was rendered in favor of plaintiffs against defendant Lutcher-Moore Lumber Company for the title and Jossession of the land in controversy, sustaining their plea of ten years’ limitation, and for the defendant Lartigue, as against plaintiffs, on their count for breach of warranty. In support of his judgment the trial' court filed the following conclusions of fact:

“I find from the evidence that during the year 1915 Sallie A. Harvey, and husband, Tom Harvey, took possession of, claiming and fencing the tract of land herein sued for, said land being adjacent to their home tract of land, they claiming, occupying and using said land so fenced as a pasture continuously until some time in the year 1921Tom Harvey having died in September 1919, his wife, Sallie A. Harvey, continued to claim, occupy and use said land as her property, and during the year 1921 she constructed and had constructed a building on said tract of land in which a store was run by Sallie A. Harvey and her. tenants, Mrs. Harvey com tinuing to claim, occupy and use said land, and claiming title thereto until on or about 6th day of December A. D. 1927 when she sold same.
v * * * i further find that Sallie A. Harvey and husband, Tom Harvey, took adverse possession, claiming- title and possession to the land herein sued for in the year% 1915 and held peaceable and adverse possession of said tract of land, in person and by their tenants until the sale of Sallie A. Harvey, a feme sole, to M. B. Daniels and wife, • [573]*573Ruby Daniels, on tbe 6th day of December, 1927; that the said M. B. Daniels and wife, Ruby Daniels claimed title and held possession of, and occupied said land under said conveyance until on or about the 6th day of August A. D. 1929, the date of the Sheriff deed to Frank J. Lartigue and delivery of said land and premises thereon, and that Frank J. Lartigue claimed title and held possession of and to said land and improvements until after the 9th day of December, 1929, the date of the sale and delivery of said land and improvements to Ada Vargo and husband, Joe Vargo; that the plaintiffs, Ada Vargo and husband, Joe Vargo, have claimed and held adverse possession of said land and improvements, from date of their purchase from defendant, Frank J. Lartigue, to and including the date of the trial of this suit.”

On motion of appellant, the following additional fact conclusions Were filed:

“1. I find that Ned Harvey entered upon the land in question about August 27, 1921, as tenant of Sallie A. Harvey, and lived • there until he turned the premises over to Ella Nixon, May 29, 1923.
“2. I find that Ella Nixon (Blackstone) entered upon the land in question May 29, 1923, and remained there about one month.
“3. I find that 0. E. Lowery, the brother of Ella Nixon, entered upon the land in controversy at the same time his sister, Ella Nixon, did, and lived there approximately four months after Ella Nixon left there.”

The court also found that plaintiffs held under a regular chain of title from and under Mrs. Sallie A. Harvey. Defendant Lutcher-Moore Lumber Company has duly perfected its appeal from the judgment rendered against it in the lower court.

Opinion.

As we understand appellant’s brief, it makes the following points against the judgment on the issue of limitation:

First, it is contended that the entry and claim of Mrs. Harvey and her husband in 1915 was not hostile, and never became hostile, to the title of the true owner. This contention is overruled. We quote as follows from the testimony of Mrs. Sallie Harvey, questions and answers reduced to narrative, italicizing the portions relied upon by appellant to establish its proposition:

"“I owned and operated a place of business on the tract as described in direct interrogatory No. 4. ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ We claimed the land and occupied it with the place of business. As stated before, I did not live on the land, but I occupied it and asserted title to the land since 1915. We claimed the land as our own from 1915 until we sold it. During the entire time I lived on said land above described we were claiming the same as our own. We claimed to own the land above described during 'the whole of the time that we lived on the said land.
“We acquired the land which we sold to M. B. Daniels and wife Ruby Daniels by deed dated December 6, 1927, by limitation.
“Me and my husband did take possession of this tract where Mrs. Vargo lives. That was sometime in the spring of 1915. We fixed it up. It was only about 100 or 200 yards between our north line and the concrete road —that is, the Beaumont public road — and my husband put our fence on the road in order to home an outlet to the road', <md we tried to find out ioho it belonged to. It wasn’t loorth but about $10.00 an aere at that time, and we could have bought it, and my fence stayed up there until 1921, when the Houston Construction Co. took the fence down when they put the road through and Mr. Johnson (Jackson?) promised me to put the fence back there and he never did do it. We were in possession of that land in there when the fence was put down. When we first entered into possession of it by fencing, our purpose in fencing it up was to have an outlet to the road. You see, we had 40 acres of land under fence. We began claiming the land at that time. Up until 1921 we always kept the fence up. We had cattle inside and a gate right where the store is now, to go out to the road. As to what tract of land this store building is on that I spoke of as having been put on there by my father and brothers for me, we called it No Man’s Land because we couldn’t find out who the title was in.”

Jeff Byler, the father of Mrs. Harvey, testified as follows: “As'to whether or not Tom and Sallie Harvey were claiming the land from the time they fenced it until they sold it — I expect they was.

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76 S.W.2d 572, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lutcher-moore-lumber-co-v-vargo-texapp-1934.