McAnally v. Texas Co.

76 S.W.2d 997, 124 Tex. 196, 1934 Tex. LEXIS 156
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 28, 1934
DocketNo. 5882
StatusPublished
Cited by55 cases

This text of 76 S.W.2d 997 (McAnally v. Texas Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McAnally v. Texas Co., 76 S.W.2d 997, 124 Tex. 196, 1934 Tex. LEXIS 156 (Tex. 1934).

Opinion

Mr. Judge SMEDLEY

of the Commission of Appeals, Section B, delivered the opinion for the Court.

This is a suit to try the title to two tracts of land in Fisher County, one containing 123.7 acres in the north part of the south half of Section 8, Block R, W. E. Richardson survey, and the other containing 68.5 acres situated either in the south part of said Section 8 or in the north part of Section 7 of the same block. The south line of Section 8 is the north line of Section 7, and there is uncertainty as to the true location of this line. A third tract containing 28 acres is described in the petition of plaintiffs in error in the trial court, but it is a part of the 123.7 acre tract.

The common source of title was in Coleman and Davidson who were at one time the owners of Sections 7 and 8. Plaintiffs in error McAnally et al. claim ownership of the 123.7 acre tract, and also in the alternative of the 68.5 acre tract, through chain of title from heirs of Coleman and Davidson. [199]*199Plaintiffs in error Bolton Smith et al. claim ownership of the 68.5 acre tract through chain of title from Coleman and Davidson, as do plaintiffs in error Mrs. Minnie Polk et al. Defendants in error The Texas Company and Mrs. Maggie A. Teagarden claim ownership of a tract containing 333.35 acres, which they describe as the Mrs. Maggie A. Teagarden tract, and which includes both the 123.7 acre tract and the 68.5 acre tract, and also the land within the south half of Section 8 which lies between said two tracts. Defendants in error assert ownership of the Mrs. Maggie A. Teagarden tract both through deeds from and under Coleman and Davidson, which describe the tract conveyed as containing 257.63 acres, and also through adverse possession for more than ten years.

The trial court instructed the jury to return a verdict against the plaintiffs in error Bolton Smith et al. and plaintiffs in error Mrs. Minnie Polk et al. As between plaintiffs in error McAnally et al. and defendants in error The Texas Company and Mrs. Maggie A. Teagarden one special issue was submitted to the jury, which was in substance whether defendants in error and their predecessors in title, Hill and Sanders, either in person or by tenants, had had peaceable possession of the land in controversy for any consecutive period of ten years. Following an affirmative answer to the issue, judgment was rendered in favor of defendants in error against plaintiffs in error for the title and possession of the Mrs. Maggie A. Teagarden tract. This judgment was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals. 32 S. W. (2d) 947.

The facts which form the basis for the trial court’s action in instructing a verdict against plaintiffs in error Bolton Smith et al. and Mrs. Minne Polk et al., and for the affirmance of that action by the Court of Civil Appeals are thus correctly stated in the careful and learned opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals written by Judge Leslie:

“December 31, 1888, Coleman and Davidson conveyed to J. M. Ojerholm the north y% of section No. 7, describing the land by metes and bounds, and stating the tract to contain 320 acres. As part of the consideration for this conveyance, Ojerholm executed and delivered to Coleman and Davidson a series of vendor’s lien notes which passed in due course into the hands of Smith and Drought, a firm composed of Francis Smith and H. P. Drought. With these notes was transferred the lien securing the same, ‘including * * * superior title’ to the land the same as though the assignee of the notes had been the ‘original owners and vendors of said land.’ Thereafter Smith [200]*200and Drought brought suit on the notes and foreclosed the vendor’s lien on the land, describing it as in the original deed from Coleman and Davidson to Ojerholm, and calling for 320 acres. On February 6, 1897, Smith and Drought obtained a judgment as prayed for on the notes, with foreclosure on said lands as described in the original deed. * * * In satisfaction of this judgment, Ojerholm, on September 23, 1902, by warranty deed, sold and conveyed to Francis Smith and H. P. Drought his title and interest in the land, describing it as in the original deed to him of December 31, 1888. This conveyance (September 23, 1902) was made by Ojerholm after he had accepted from Coleman and Davidson on December 19, 1892, a deed of correction of the original deed (1888), and also after Coleman and Davidson had parted with the Ojerholm notes, lien and superior title as recited in the transfer just noticed of March 31, 1890. The deed of correction recited it was executed to correct the field notes in the original deed, that it was not intended to affect the vendor’s lien in that instrument, and that there was a shortage of 57 acres in the original conveyance, and that Ojerholm was to have a proportional abatement in the purchase price of the land. The correction deed was filed for record February 27, 1893, almost nine years prior to the time Ojerholm conveyed the land to Smith and Drought in satisfaction of the judgment.”

The 68.5 acre tract was included within the particular description by metes and bounds contained in the first deed from Coleman and Davidson to Ojerholm, but was not included within the particular description by metes and bounds contained in the correction deed. There were included as a part of the land conveyed by the correction deed a number of acres in Section 7 which were not included in the first deed.

Plaintiffs in error Bolton Smith et ah, who claim as heirs of Francis Smith and H. P. Drought, and also plaintiffs in error Mrs. Minnie Polk et al., who claim through deeds from Smith and Drought, assert that they have title to the 68.5 acre tract through the assignment of the vendor's lien notes, together with the conveyance of the superior title reserved to secure the notes, from Coleman and Davidson to Francis Smith Coleman & Company (the predecessors of Smith and Drought), the suit on the notes and the judgment foreclosing the lien, and the conveyance from Ojerholm to Smith and Drought in satisfaction of the judgment. They take the position that Smith and Drought thus acquired the superior title to the 68.5 acre tract unaffected by the correction deed. The Court of Civil [201]*201Appeals held that Smith and Drought, by filing suit on the notes and foreclosing the lien, elected to confirm in Ojerholm the superior title which they had theretofore acquired from Coleman and Davidson, and that such rights as Smith and Drought thereafter acquired in any of the lands were acquired solely by the conveyance of Ojerholm to them in satisfaction of the judgment, and further that Ojerholm’s deed did not give them title to the 68.5 acre tract because he had theretofore accepted the correction deed and could neither claim nor convey that tract which was not included within the correction deed.

We do not find it necessary to determine and do not decide whether or not the ruling of the Court of Civil Appeals, last stated, if rested solely upon the facts quoted above from that opinion, is correct. We have reached the conclusion that those facts, together with other undisputed facts in the record, sustain the action of the trial court in peremptorily instructing a verdict against plaintiffs in error, Bolton Smith et al., and Mrs. Mnnie Polk et al.

Coleman and Davidson undertook to sell and convey to Ojerholm a tract of land off the north end of Section 7. This deed described the land as the north one-half of Section 7, but it gave a particular description by metes and bounds which included the 68.5 acre tract.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
76 S.W.2d 997, 124 Tex. 196, 1934 Tex. LEXIS 156, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcanally-v-texas-co-tex-1934.