Security Realty & Development Co. v. Bunch

143 S.W.2d 687, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 723
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 27, 1940
DocketNo. 3697
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 143 S.W.2d 687 (Security Realty & Development Co. v. Bunch) 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
Security Realty & Development Co. v. Bunch, 143 S.W.2d 687, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 723 (Tex. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

O’QUINN, Justice.

As tried in the lower court, this was an action by appellant Mrs. David E. O’Fiel, claiming the property as her separate property, joined by her husband, David E. O’Fi-el, against appellees C. T. Bunch et al., for partition of the McGuire Chesson survey of 262 acres of land in Orange county; appellants claimed an undivided %th interest in the survey. Appellees answered by demurrers, general and special denial, pleas of ten year limitation, estoppel, and res adjudicata based upon the judgment rendered in Howth & O’Fiel v. Taliaferro, No. 20890 on the docket of the trial court, affirmed by this court, Howth et al. v. Taliaferro, Tex.Civ.App., 289 S.W. 119, writ refused. The issues in the cáse at bar were identical with the issues in Howth v. Taliaferro, except that Mrs. O’Fiel in the case at bar was a party by name, claiming the ⅜⅛ undivided interest as her separate property. The case at bar was tried upon the very issues submitted to the jury in Howth v. Taliaferro, which were as follows, and which were answered in this case as in Howth v. Taliaferro, that is, the jury answered question No. 1 in the negative, and question No. 2 ill the affirmative. We give'the issues:

“Issue No. 1

“Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence there was a delivery to the grantee, H. L. Gray, of the deed introduced in evidence of date the 1st day of April, 1873, wherein Jef Chaison and James Chai-son are grantors and H. L. Gray is grantee and recorded on the 28th day of December, 1921?

“Issue No. 2

“Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that W. F. Taliaferro, during his lifetime, under whom the defendants herein claim, or those under whom he claimed had been in continuous, peaceable and adverse possession of the land in controversy, or any part thereof, cultivating, using or enjoying the same for a period of ten consecutive years prior to the institution of this suit on September 24, 1934?”

On the verdict, judgment was entered against appellant, from which she has prosecuted her appeal to this court.

We take the following statement of the case from appellees’ brief: “During the year 1922, R. W. Howth, and David E. O’Fiel, claiming to own a part of the McGuire Chesson Survey in Orange County, Texas, sued W. F. Taliaferro in Cause No. 20890, in the District Court of Jefferson. County, Texas, to partition said survey. The defendant, W. F. Taliaferro, filed an answer and cross-action in said case on December 9, 1922, suing O’Fiel and Howth for all of said Chesson Survey. On December 30th, 1922, and during the pen-dency of said suit, David E. O’Fiel took' a deed from H. L. Gray, Jr. conveying to him the one-fifth interest involved herein in the Chesson Survey and retaining' a vendor’s lien to secure the payment of a $520.00 note, a part of the purchase price. During the month of June, 1925, the plaintiffs, David E. O’Fiel and R. W. Howth, having filed a.plea of ‘not guilty’ to the cross action of W. F. Taliaferro, the case [689]*689came on for trial before a duly empanelled jury to which jury only two special issues were submitted, the first being whether or not a deed signed by Jeff and James Chai-son to H. L. Gray, dated April 1, 1873, and acknowledged only by James Chaison, and recorded on December 30, 1921, was delivered to H. L. Gray, Sr., the second issue being ten years limitation, both of which issues were answered by the jury in favor of W. F. Taliaferro, and upon the verdict of the jury a judgment was rendered on July 18, 1925, in favor of W. F. Taliaferro against R. W. Howth, David E.'O’Fiel and all intervenors in said cause, for all the McGuire Chesson Survey of 262 acres, which judgment was affirmed on October 28, 1926, by this Honorable Court and reported in Vol. 289 S.W., Page 119, and Writ of Error was denied by the Supreme Court.”

For further explanation of the nature and facts of this case, we refer to the statement .made in Howth v. Taliaferro, and adopt the statement therein made as a part of the statement herein.

H. L. Gray, Jr., claimed through H. L. Gray, the grantee in the deed submitted to the jury by question No. 1, and appellant claimed only through H. L. Gray, Jr.

As explaining appellees’ title, we take the following additional statement, supplementing the statement made above, from appel-lees’ brief: “The evidence is • undisputed .that Hugh E. Gray was the only son of Caroline Chesson Gray, the first wife of H. L. Gray, Sr., and that his mother’s title descended to him. Hugh E. Gray, by deed of March 16, 1894, conveyed 248 acres in Orange County known as the McGuire Chesson Survey to Clara Landry, through whom appellees by mesne conveyances, and the judgment against David E. O’Fiel, R. W. Flowth, and others rendered in Cause No. 20890, in the District Court of Jefferson County, Texas, July 18th, 1925, now claim the land. Charles J. Chaison, a son of Jeff Chaison stated in his oral testimony that he heard a discussion among his family as to a partition of the Chesson Estate, that he never heard of his father making any claim to the McGuire Chesson Survey, that in regard to a partition of the McGuire Chesson Estate he heard a discussion as to the McGuire Chesson 262 acre Survey in Orange County, Texas; that it was ⅛. discussion with the Chaison family, that he found out from his mother in discussing it with her about the division of the estate. that the McGuire Chesson Survey in a partition of the estate of McGuire Chesson. went to Caroline Gray, the wife of H. L. Gray, Sr.”

On the jury’s answers to question-No. 1, H. L. Gray never had any title. tO' the McGuire Chesson Survey, but the title-was vested in his wife, Caroline Chaison-Gray, as her separate property, and no title-descended from H. L. Gray to his son H. L. Gray, Jr. Therefore, appellant acquired no title through H. L. Gray, Jr.

But appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict on issue No. 1. The following testimony given by Judge George C. O’Brien, on the trial of Cause No. 20890, in our judgment, supports the verdict:

“This instrument which you hand me, I have examined and it purports to be a deed by James Chesson and T. J. or Jeff Chesson to H. L. Gray, Sr. I knew H. L. Gray, Sr., in his lifetime. During his lifetime my father and the firm with which he was associated and I was associated represented him and I attended to it. * * * I think the original of this deed which I now have in my hand from him and T. J. or Jeff Chesson to H. L. Gray, Sr., was in the Clerk’s office. About 1901 or about the time of the oil boom those papers were transferred to O’Brien and- O’Brien’s office and since about 1906 it has been there with my papers. That is, I got the custody of it in 1906. All those papers were filed away there in a safe. I was employed to settle up the estate. There was some friction between Mrs. Allen and her husband and H. L. Gray and the boys, and she wanted to sell her interest and move away. The heirs would not buy it. Yes, I represented them. As their legal representative, I had copies of deeds, documents, etc., pertaining to the estate. This paper which I hold came into my possession as I have explained. * * * I am sixty-three years old. Captain Geo. W. O’Brien was my father. He was known as Captain O’ Brien. I think I became associated with him about 1890 or 1889. He died in 1909. * * * I knew of this deed which I hold in my hand of McGuire Chesson to H. L. Gray prior to the death of my father. He died in 1909. Yes, I recall about the. date it came from the clerk’s office to my father’s office; it must have been somewhere between 1901 and 1902 or 1903.

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Bluebook (online)
143 S.W.2d 687, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 723, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/security-realty-development-co-v-bunch-texapp-1940.