Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Kibbe

235 S.W.2d 735, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 2446
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 6, 1950
DocketNo. 12193
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 235 S.W.2d 735 (Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Kibbe) 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
Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Kibbe, 235 S.W.2d 735, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 2446 (Tex. Ct. App. 1950).

Opinion

NORVELL, Justice.

By judgment in trespass to try title, plaintiffs, Irvin Kibbe, Frank W. Kibbe, Jr., and Rosalis Kibbe McCroskey, were awarded an undivided one-half interest in two tracts of land in Hidalgo County, Texas. The Magnolia Petroleum Company, one of the defendants below, holds an oil, gas and mineral lease purporting to cover all of the two tracts involved and brings the case here.

Trial was to the court without a jury and detailed findings and conclusions olf law were filed. In his findings and conclusions a number of theories supporting the judgment were advanced. It is not, however, deemed essential to notice all of them here. The following statement from the findings of fact, stipulations of the parties and the uncontroverted evidence is deemed sufficient.

The common source of title to the tracts involved was F. W. Kibbe and the property was a part of the community of the said Kibbe and his wife, Loula Rose Kibbe.

On July 16, 1908, Frank W. Kibbe published a last will and testament which named his wife, Loula Rose Kibbe, as the sole beneficiary and designated her as independent executrix of the estate. No mention was made of children who might thereafter be born.

Frank W. Kibbe and Loula Rose Kibbe were each married one time only. They had three children, the appellees here, who are the heirs at law of Frank W. Kibbe.- All of them were born after the execution oif the will above mentioned, and the youngest child became twenty-one years old on October 31, 1937.

Frank W. Kibbe died on November 13, 1931, and his will was probated in Cameron County upon application of his widow, Loula Rose Kibbe.

On January 16, 1942, judgment by default was rendered on an amended petition filed October 3, 1941, in 'Cause No. AA-423 on the docket of the 93rd District Court of Hidalgo County in favor of plaintiff, Pharr-San Juan Independent School District and interveners, State of Texas, Hidalgo County and Hidalgo County Water Improvement District No. Two, for the amount of accrued taxes for the years 1920 to 1940, both inclusive, and the tax liens securing said taxes were ordered foreclosed. At the sale, the property was bought in by the school district and thereafter sold to Frank Thomason, who executed an oil and gas lease on the property under which the appellant, Magnolia Petroleum Company now holds.

The parties to the tax lien foreclosure judgment which have relevancy here, were “Loula Rose Kibbe, individually and as executrix of the estate of Frank W. Ki'bbe.”

The trial judge concluded as a matter of law that:

' “The plaintiffs Rosalis Kibbe McCroskey, Frank W. Kibbe, Jr., and Irvin Kibbe are pretermitted children -of Frank W. Kibbe, deceased, within the provisions of Article 8293 before its amendment by Acts 51 Legislature (1949) Chapter 120, Sec. 1, p. 218.
“As such pretermitted children of Frank W. Kibbe the said plaintiffs Rosalis Kibbe McCroskey, Frank W. Kibbe, Jr., and Irvin Kibbe, were, and still are, the owners of an undivided one-half of the property involved in this suit, prior to the institution of Cause No. AA-423 in the 93rd District Court of Hidalgo County, Texas.
“The provisions of Article 8293 as it existed prior to its amendment in 1949 were ingrafted upon and 'became an unwritten part of the will of Frank W. Kibbe, deceased, and of the order of the County Court of Cameron County, Texas, admitting same to probate.”

[737]*737Article 8293, as the same existed at the time of the tax lien foreclosure judgment -here involved (i. e., prior to the 1949 amendment), reads as follows:

“Every last will and testament made when the testator had no child living, wherein any child he might have is not provided for or mentioned, if at the time of his death he shall leave a child, or leave his wife enceinte of a child which shall he born, shall have no effect during the life of such after-born child, and shall be void, unless the child die without having been married and before he shall have attained the age of twenty-one years.” 1

By paraphrasing the Supreme Court’s language in Conroy v. Conroy, 130 Tex. 508, 110 S.W.2d 568, we may say that a proper construction of the will of Frank W. Kibbe, taken with the statutory provision above set out, is as follows: “I, Frank W. Kibbe, do now here give, demise and bequeath to my wife, Loula Rose Kibbe, all of my estate; provided, however, that if at my death I should have a child born after the execution of this will, then thi-s instrument shall have no effect as to said child, unless such child shall die before attaining the age of twenty-one years. In that event this will shall be binding and shall vest all of my estate in my wife, Loula Rose Kibbe. But in the event such child, if any, shall attain the age of twenty-one years then this will, insofar as it affects the legal rights of said child shall be null and void.”

In contending that the tax foreclosure judgment was binding upon the Kibbe heirs, the appellant, 'by means of six points of error, presents two principal arguments, i. e., (1) the Kibbe heirs were bound through representation by Mrs. Loula Rose Kibbe as a “survivor in community,” and (2) the Kibbe heirs were bound through representation by Mrs. Loula Rose Kibbe as executrix of the estate of Frank W. Kibbe, deceased.

This latter position taken by appellant is clearly untenable under the express wording of the statute which makes each and every provision of a will void as to pretermitted children. This invalidation applies alike to the provision relating to the appointment of an executrix as well as to the provisions controlling the disposition of property.

Loula Rose Kibbe was never the legally appointed executrix of the estate insofar as appellees were concerned, and cases such as Howard v. Johnson, 69 Tex. 655, 7 S.W. 522, and Baldwin v. Hull-Daisetta Independent School District, Tex.Civ.App., 95 S.W.2d 1350, which hold that devisees are 'bound by a judgment rendered against a duly appointed executor, are not in point here. This is made clear by the decision of the Supreme Court in Taylor v. Martin’s Estate, 117 Tex. 302, 3 S.W.2d 408, 409, wherein it was held that although a will could be probated even though a minor pretermitted child be living, no letters testamentary could then issue as the statute made the' will inoperative during the life of an after-born child, and rendered the will void unless the child should die without having been married and before attaining the age of twenty-one years.

In 1941 and 1942, when the petition was filed, citation issued and judgment rendered in the tax suit, the youngest of the Kibbe children was over twenty-one years of age. There never was a time when Mrs. Kibbe’s appointment as executrix was effective as to appellees. As to them such appointment was wholly void, and it follows that no judgment rendered against Loula Rose Ki'bbe as executrix could bind them in any way. [738]*738The fact that a part of the taxes sued for accrued after the death of Frank W. Ki'bbe does not alter the situation.

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Bluebook (online)
235 S.W.2d 735, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 2446, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/magnolia-petroleum-co-v-kibbe-texapp-1950.