Schoonmaker v. Clardy

244 S.W. 124, 1922 Tex. App. LEXIS 1236
CourtTexas Commission of Appeals
DecidedOctober 18, 1922
DocketNos. 268-3493
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 244 S.W. 124 (Schoonmaker v. Clardy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Commission of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Schoonmaker v. Clardy, 244 S.W. 124, 1922 Tex. App. LEXIS 1236 (Tex. Super. Ct. 1922).

Opinion

McCLENDON, P. J.

This was an action in trespass to try title, in which plaintiff ■below, W. F. Schoonmaker, sought to recover of defendants below, Allie D. Clardy and others,. a tract of land in El Paso county. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed a judgment of the trial court rendered in favor of defendants upon a directed verdict. 218 S. W. 1112.

There are two theories upon either or both of which defendants contend that the judgment of the trial courts should be sustained:

1. That defendants were entitled to recover as a matter of law upon a showing of adverse possession of ten years between the date of the filing of the original petition in 1908 and the filing of the trial amendment to the second amended original petition in 1919.

2. That there was no reversible error in excluding portions of the depositions of the witness Lowe and in sustaining a motion to strike out the entire depositions of four Mexican witnesses; and without this testimony plaintiff failed to establish a claim to the land, sufficient to sustain an action of trespass to try title.

The first and second amended original petitions, which were filed in 1917 and 1919 respectively, describe a tract of land whose initial (northwest) corner is due south from the northeast corner of survey No. 11. The trial amendment, places this corner due south from the northwest corner of No. 11. This trial amendment shifts the land to a position entirely west of the tract sued for in the first and second amendments, with the possible exception of a narrow overlapping strip. There are no- calls in the description in the two amended petitions which would in any way identify the land sued for except the initial call for the northwest corner, which is placed due south of the N. E. corner of No. 11.

Under our system of pleading, an amended petition entirely supersedes the previous petition of which it is an amendment When, therefore, the first amended original petition was filed, the original petition was abandoned, and only the title to such land as was embraced in the amended pleading was put in issue. When the trial amendment was filed, the cause of action asserted by plaintiff was a claim of title to a tract of land practically wholly west of the tract embraced in the. two amended petitions. This was a new cause of action to the extent that the two tracts did not overlap, and clearly to that extent limitation would run up to the filing of the trial amendment.

The evidence, however, will not support a directed verdict for defendants upon-the theory of adverse possession under the 10-year statute prior to the filing of the trial amendment. There was ample testimony tending to show such possession, but it was not without contradiction, and the issue thus raised was one of fact for a jury, and not of law for the court.

The Court of Civil Appeals upheld the action of the trial court in excluding parts of the deposition of Lowe and in striking out the entire depositions of the four Mexican witnesses upon several grounds. We will consider the issues thus presented in somewhat different order from that adopted by the Court of Civil Appeals.

It was held by that court that the testimony thus excluded or stricken out was based upon interrogatories in which the land sued for was described by the field notes given in the first amended petition, which was an entirely different tract of land from that described in the trial amendment. The question thus presented is one solely of identity of the subject-matter of the several witnesses’ testimony.

In order to a clear understanding of this issue, a brief statement of the case made by plaintiff, independently of the testimony excluded or stricken out, is necessary. The evidence is in parts obscure, as is usual in a case in which the witnesses are testifying from maps and plats; and in some respects' the testimony may be conflicting. But a careful review of the entire statement of facts will, we believe, support the following conclusions.

About the year 1854 when the Texas grants (which adjoined each other and were located respectively from east to west as Nos. 7, .8, 11, and 12) were surveyed, and which called for the Rio Grande river as their south boundary, the river was fairly coincident with the north line of the land in suit, and this land was therefore in the republic of Mexico. Between 1854 and 1906 the river, [126]*126by one or more sudden changes, occupied a bed some 2,000 or more varas further south and at a place which would form the south' boundary of the land in suit. In 1906 plaintiff acquired his claim to the land by two deeds. One of these deeds was executed by Eelix "Lucero and wife, and the other by Placido Zambrano. The Lucero deed was in evidence, but the Zambrano deed had been lost. At the time of plaintiff’s purchase, the land was surveyed by Carrascosa, who appears to have been a competent Mexican engineer residing in El Paso. He had been familiar with the land for many years and had drawn several deeds to portions of the land whereby title was acquired by Zam-brano. He drew the two deeds under which plaintiff claimed. Without going into details, we think the testimony of Carrascosa substantially identifies the land claimed by Lucero and Zambrano and embodied in the deeds to plaintiff, as the same land described in the trial amendment. Lowe acted for plaintiff at or shortly after the purchase, and his testimony is also sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the land which Lucero and Zambrano claimed and deeded to plaintiff was the same as that sued for in the trial amendment. Lowe examined the Mexican title, and from it concluded that plaintiff acquired good title under the deeds. He also testified with reference to a map made by one Montijo, which placed the land sued for south of survey No. 11, and substantially identified the Montijo survey with that made by Carrascosa. The latter testified that plaintiff’s grantors had been in possession of their respective tracts and had cultivated portions of it a number of years.

Several of the witnesses refer to an old island which was intersected by the north line of the land in suit, and to some high ground with large cottonwood trees growing upon it at the southern extremity of the land just north of the river.

An old Mexican church, San Lorenzo, is shown on the' Montijo map some 2,000 varas south of the river. This church, according to this map, was slightly to the east of a projection of the east line of survey No. 11.

The excluded testimony of Lowe was to the effect that, when he first examined the land, the Zambranos, its then owners, had planted and growing upon it quite a number of acres; that he helped survey the land and he pointed out a number of natural objects in connection with this survey. He states that the island was' plainly visible, and he identified the land which he helped survey at the time plaintiff bought as that delineated upon the map made by Montijo. He also testified that to his knowledge defendants had not been in possession,of this land up to 1908 when he left El Paso, and that the possession of the Zambranos was transferred direct to plaintiff in his presence. The Montijo map, which was introduced in evidence, locates the land in suit as in the trial amendment, placing it south of survey No. 11. It is to be noted that the interrogatories propounded to this witness do not attempt to describe the land by metes and bounds, but merely refer to it as about 117 acres between the Rio Grande river as it now runs and the old bed of the river as it ran prior to 1898, and “this tract of land is at the south end of surveys 11 and 12.’’

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Bluebook (online)
244 S.W. 124, 1922 Tex. App. LEXIS 1236, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schoonmaker-v-clardy-texcommnapp-1922.