Navarro v. Collora

566 S.W.2d 304, 1978 Tex. App. LEXIS 3012
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 28, 1978
DocketNo. 1223
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 566 S.W.2d 304 (Navarro v. Collora) 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
Navarro v. Collora, 566 S.W.2d 304, 1978 Tex. App. LEXIS 3012 (Tex. Ct. App. 1978).

Opinions

OPINION

BISSETT, Justice.

The opinion of this Court is this case heretofore rendered and filed on December 29, 1977 is withdrawn and this opinion is substituted therefor.

This is an instructed verdict case. Ollie B. Collora sued Franklin R. Navarro for partition of a 68.5 acre tract of land located in Lavaca County, Texas. Her petition was filed on January 7, 1971 in the District Court of Lavaca County, Texas. Josephine Constance Collora, Frank Dominick Collora and Joseph M. Collora, Jr., minor children of the plaintiff Ollie B. Collora and her former husband Joseph Michael Collora, from whom she was divorced in 1959 and who died testate in 1968, acting by and through Charles Frank Mustachia and Frances Mustachia, testamentary trustees of the Estate of Joseph Michael Collora, Deceased, intervened and asked that the defendant be required to assign his interest in the land “to the JOSEPH COLLORA ESTATE”. The petition in intervention was filed on March 16, 1973.

Trial before a jury commenced on January 12, 1976. After all parties had rested, [306]*306the plaintiff and the intervenors each filed a motion for an instructed verdict. Both motions were granted and judgment was rendered on October 20, 1976. Franklin R. Navarro, the defendant, has appealed. We reverse and remand.

The parties will be referred to either by name, or as “plaintiff”, “intervenors”, and “defendants”, as they were in the trial court. “Joseph Michael Collora” and “Joe M. Collora” are one and the same person.

The judgment contained the following findings of fact:

(1) a valid marriage existed between the plaintiff and Joseph M. Collora prior to the purchase of the 68.5 acre tract by Joseph M. Collora through the Veterans Land Board;
(2) the Court of Domestic Relations of Harris County, Texas, entered a judgment which set aside an undivided one-half interest in the 68.5 acre tract to the plaintiff Ollie B. Collora;

The judgment decreed:

(1) the plaintiff recover from the defendant “the title to and possession of an undivided one-half interest” in the 68.5 acre tract;
(2) the intervenors recover from the defendant “the title and possession of an undivided one-half interest in and to the same property”; and,
(3) the plaintiff and the intervenors “shall have their writ of possession for said property”.

Defendant brings forward four points of error. Two points (1 and 2) are directed at the judgment in favor of the plaintiff, and the other two points (3 and 4) are directed at the judgment in favor of the intervenors. He contends that the trial court erred in granting the motions for instructed verdict on the grounds: 1) “the evidence adduced at the trial raised significant issues of fact”; and 2) the evidence supporting each motion “was not conclusive”.

The circumstances which entitle a litigant to an instructed verdict are clearly set out in 56 Tex.Jur.2d, Trial § 206 (1964), as follows:

“A motion for an instructed verdict will be granted where no issue of fact is presented by the evidence, where only the legal effect of evidence is involved, where the facts are properly pleaded and indisputably proved, where no verdict other than the one requested could properly be sustained, or where reasonable minds could draw only one inference from the evidence.”

In reviewing an instructed verdict case, an appellant court must consider all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the verdict was instructed and must disregard all conflicting evidence. Echols v. Wells, 510 S.W.2d 916 (Tex.Sup.1974); Seideneck v. Cal Bayreuther Associates, 451 S.W.2d 752 (Tex.Sup.1970); State Highway Department v. Hinson, 517 S.W.2d 308 (Tex.Civ.App.-Corpus Christi 1974, writ ref’d n. r. e.). When reasonable minds may differ as to the truth of controlling facts, an issue for the trier of facts is presented. Najera v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 146 Tex. 367, 207 S.W.2d 365 (Tex.Sup.1948).

In late 1948 or the first part of 1949, Joe M. Collora and the plaintiff became interested in purchasing land under the Texas Veterans’ Land Board Program. They located a 68.5 acre tract of land which is the subject matter of this suit, and a contract of sale and purchase, hereinafter called the “contract”, was signed on January 17,1950, by the Veterans’ Land Board, as seller, and by Joe M. Collora, as purchaser. It provided for the purchase of said land by Joe M. Collora for the total consideration of $7,000.00, payable $350.00 down and the remainder in semi-annual installments ($143.30) over a period not to exceed 40 years, with interest thereon at the rate of 3% per annum.

Joe M. Collora and the plaintiff were divorced by the Court of Domestic Relations of Harris County, Texas, on December 15,1959. The contract was outstanding and in force and effect at that time.

Joe M. Collora, by deed dated January 3, 1962, purported to convey all of the subject land to the Camille Corporation, and by [307]*307assignment dated January 10, 1962, purported to assign the contract covering said land to the Camille Corporation. The assignment was approved by the Veterans’ Land Board. Thereafter, the Camille Corporation, by deed dated May 27, 1965, purported to convey all of the 68.5 acre tract to the defendant. The record does not reveal that this assignment was approved by the Veterans’ Land Board.

Joe M. Collora died in 1968, and was survived by three children, the intervenors herein. Joe M. Collora did not himself seek to set aside the assignment and conveyance to the Camille Corporation, nor did he attack the conveyance to the defendant on any ground.

The land in question was purchased by the Veterans’ Land Board by deed dated January 23,1950. There is no evidence that the Board has ever executed and delivered a deed to the land to anyone. It is also established by the evidence that at the time of the assignment of the contract and the execution of the deed by Joe M. Collora to the Camille Corporation that the land was reasonably worth $23,000.00 and that the balance then due the Veterans’ Land Board on the original purchase price was approximately $5,500.00. Camille Corporation paid all installments due the Veterans’ Land Board from January 3, 1962 until May 27, 1965. Apparently all installments due subsequent to May 27, 1965 had been paid by the defendant.

The evidence does not justify, authorize or permit a partition of the land between the parties to this lawsuit. The most that could be accomplished is an adjustment of equities, if any, between the parties.

The judgment of the trial court, which is now before this Court in this appeal, did not “partition” the land, as prayed for by the plaintiff, and did not order the defendant “to reassign the contract of sale to the JOSEPH COLLORA ESTATE”, as prayed for by the intervenors. In effect, the judgment decreed, in part, that the plaintiff and the intervenors each recover from the defendant “the title” to an undivided one-half interest in the land involved despite the fact that the apparent record title to the land was in the Veterans’ Land Board, who was not a party to the suit.

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566 S.W.2d 304, 1978 Tex. App. LEXIS 3012, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/navarro-v-collora-texapp-1978.