Scanlan v. City of Houston

137 S.W.2d 204
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 8, 1940
DocketNo. 11029.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 137 S.W.2d 204 (Scanlan v. City of Houston) 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
Scanlan v. City of Houston, 137 S.W.2d 204 (Tex. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

GRAVES, Justice.

This appeal, brought to and advanced for hearing in this court, pursuant to R. S. Article 4662, is from an order of the 113th District Court of Harris County refusing the appellants a temporary injunction against the appellee restraining it from proceeding with the pavement it had previously determined upon of land it found constituted the unpaved portion of Fannin Street in Houston, frbm the south property line of Calhoun Avenue to the north property line of Pierce Avenue; such unpaved portion lying on the west side of. Fannin Street, between those two avenues, and abutting appellants’ property, known as. Block 404 of such City.

The challenged order was entered by the court, after a full hearing of pleadings and evidence from both sides, but otherwise than as recited in the decree itself, was not supported by filing findings of either fact or law.

*205 The recitations referred to, in so far as deemed material, were as follows:

“Whereupon the Court having considered the said pleadings, evidence and argument of counsel, announced * * * that the plaintiffs were not entitled to such temporary injunction,, provided that the defendant, City of Houston, acting through its duly authorized Mayor and City Council, would within five days file an agreement to prosecute with due diligence this suit to final judgment, to not attempt to discontinue the said suit until final judgment is entered, to prosecute its cross-action seeking in the alternative to condemn the land in dispute east of the fence on Fannin Street, in 'the event that a final judgment was entered adjudging the land in controversy to the plaintiffs, and in such event to pay the amount awarded in the condemnation proceedings as damages to the plaintiffs, which said agreement was to further expressly waive any question of invalidity of the agreement by reason of the court not requiring the City to put up any amount of cash or bond or other security.
“Now, on this 13th day of December, 1939, it appearing to the court that the City of Houston has duly and legally caused to be executed the said agreement and has filed the same with the Clerk of the Court as a part of the record in this cause, and the Court having examined the same and approved such agreement,
“It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed, that the petition of the plaintiffs, Lillian Scanlan and Stella Scanlan, praying for a temporary injunction against the defendant, City of Houston, be aftd the same is in all things refused and denied, to which ruling the said plaintiffs except and give notice of appeal.”

The single question the appeal presents is whether the court abused its discretion in thus refusing the writ. Scanlan v. Houston L. & P. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 62 S. W.2d 537, at page 539, column 2, and authorities there cited.

In insisting here that the quoted order did go beyond the bounds of a sound judicial discretion, in denying them the coveted writ, the appellants do so upon the ground that the threatened paving, if permitted to be carried out, will forcibly take from them a strip of about 20 feet by the entire length of the block off of the east side of their Block' 404, which they claim to be not only the owners of in fee simple, but to have been in peaceable and adverse possession of against the world at all times since the year 1871, describing such property as follows:

“Block Four Hundred and Four (404) of the City of Houston, Harris County, Texas, and of all land lying between Pierce Avenue and Calhoun Avenue and extending Southeast from Main Street to the concrete curb as it has existed for many years along the Northwest line of Fannin Street, the said curb being the curb which extends from Pierce Avenue to Calhoun Avenue Southeast of the old line of trees on the Southeast part of said property.”

In answer, the appellee insists that such evidence showed the disputed strip to have been a part of Fannin Street, under dedication thereof to public uses as such, from at least the year 1898 to the time of this hearing.

So that, as between these two contentions, the controversy is to be determined from what the evidence does show, each side claiming it to have been undisputed in its own favor.

In such a proceeding, this court, in the cited Scanlan v. Houston L. & P. Co. cause, supra, at page 540 of 62 S.W.2d, in which writ of error was refused, thus stated the principle in accordance with which the evidence must be appraised: “ * * * as stated in section 253 of 24 Texas Jurisprudence, supra, the rule is that, ‘if the order was based on conflicting evidence or diverse inferences, it will not be disturbed. The evidence is not reviewed for sufficiency, as it would be upon appeal from a final judgment, but only to see if it supports the court’s exercise of discretion.’ ”

When this evidence is measured by that standard, it seems plain that no -such abuse is shown; this for the main, reason' that, taking the body of the testimony as an entirety — it was at least susceptible- of,if it did not require of the learned -trial court, these among other findings:

(1) That this disputed strip of property abutting block 404 along its entire eastern' side, had in fact been- a part of Fannin Street, which at all material times1 had-been a public highway within the corporate limits of' the City of Houston, from about the year 1898 continuotisly until the entry of this order;

*206 (2) That, perforce of the acts and conduct of the predecessors of appellants, as well as of appellants themselves, a dedication of it as such a public highway within the corporate limits of Houston, had come about from practically the same time, that is, from about 1898 or 1899, to the date of this trial.

(3) That, in consequence, such uses and services as appellants were shown to have subjected such strip to, did not in any sense constitute a proprietary possession thereof by themselves, as against the right of the public and the appellee as the governing body thereof to so appropriate and use the same as a public street.

These briefly stated features of the evidence, taken partly from the testimony of appellant, Miss Lillian Scanlan, are thought to support the court’s exercise of the discretion its action reflects.

The Scanlan family moved upon block 404 in 1892, there being then a fence on its Fannin Street side, a little further out east than where the present concrete curb exists; Fannin Street was then untravelled except by street-cars; in 1898 the Scanlans removed that fence and placed it back on the line where the present fence now stands, which is 20 feet, more or less, west of such concrete curb, which appellants claim is still the east boundary line of their block 404; after the fence was so set back in 1898, or maybe in 1899, a. cjnder-path was constructed by .the Scan-lans just outside of it to the east, along its whole length, for the convenience of people generally coming through there; there being from 1898 on to the present nothing to the east of such fence to obstruct the use of the strip by the public generally; appellants’ father, Mr. T. H.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Wilmot v. Comm'r of Transportation, No. Cv 88 3 95 19 (Nov. 29, 1991)
1991 Conn. Super. Ct. 9678 (Connecticut Superior Court, 1991)
Wash v. Menn
588 S.W.2d 637 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1979)
Powers v. Lynn
523 S.W.2d 271 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1975)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
137 S.W.2d 204, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/scanlan-v-city-of-houston-texapp-1940.