Stanford v. Dumas

137 S.W.2d 1071
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 22, 1940
DocketNo. 5106.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 137 S.W.2d 1071 (Stanford v. Dumas) 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
Stanford v. Dumas, 137 S.W.2d 1071 (Tex. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

STOKES, Justice.

This is an action of trespass to try title filed by appellant, P. G. Stanford, against appellee, H. L. Lowe and a number of others, including M. E. Dumas, not necessary to mention. The case was tried before the court without the intervention of a jury and resulted in a judgment denying appellant any relief. Appellant duly excepted, gave notice of appeal, and presents the case in this court upon a number of assignments of error and propositions of law, contending that the judgment is erroneous and should be reversed.

' The record shows that on the 17th of May, 1917, P. Z. Conrad purchased from D. B. Tingle and wife the property involved, being a lot in the town of Plains, in Yoakum County, and it was agreed that Conrad was the common source of title. On the 17th of November, 1931, M.. E. Dumas recovered a judgment against Conrad in the county court of Yoakum County, execution upon which was issued on the 10th of August, 1937, and placed in the hands of the sheriff who levied upon -the town lot as the property of Conrad and, after duly advertising the sale for September 7, 1937, sold it to appellee, H. L. Lowe, in the manner provided by law. Appellee’s bid was $155 and upon payment of that amount the sheriff executed to him a deed in regular form which was immediately placed of record in the deed records of Yoakum County.

On August 28, 1938, almost a year after appellee purchased the property at the sheriff’s sale, P. Z. Conrad executed and delivered to appellant what is termed a quitclaim deed, which purports to be a substitute for a former deed executed by Conrad to one W. L. Turner. The deed recites that Conrad had executed a deed to W. L. Turner on October 12, 1929, in which the town lot was conveyed but that such deed had been lost and was never filed for record nor recorded in the deed records of Yoakum County.

It is revealed by the record that on the 12th of October, 1929, W. L. Turner and wife executed a deed of trust conveying the property to Marion McGinty as trustee to secure the payment of a note in the sum of $525, payable to P. Z. Conrad in monthly installments of $15 each, and that W. L. Turner conveyed the property to W. W. Pollard on February 17, 1932. Pollard conveyed it to J. C. Moore on- May 15, 1932; Moore conveyed it to T. C. Perkins on the 21st of January, 1933; Perkins conveyed it to W. H. Ratcliff on the 28th of February, 1933, and Ratcliff conveyed it to appellant, Stanford, on the 4th of December, 1937. The deed executed by Turner to Pollard was filed in the office of the county clerk of Yoakum County on the 20th of January, 1936, and duly recorded, but none of the subsequent deeds was filed or recorded in the deed records until after *1073 the sheriff’s sale in which appellee purchased it and after his deed was executed and placed of record. These deeds constitute the chain of title under which appellant contends he was entitled to recover.

Appellant contends the judgment entered by the court denying him any relief is erroneous and should be reversed, first, because, he asserts, the execution issued upon the judgment of Dumas against Conrad and under which the property was sold to appellee by the Sheriff of Yoakum County, was void because it was the original execution and was not issued until more than twelve months after the judgment was rendered. Secondly, that appellee had notice, both actual and constructive, at the time he purchased the property at the sheriff’s sale, of the conveyance from Conrad to W. L. Turner.

The judgment against Conrad was rendered by the county court of Yoakum County on November 17, 1931, and no execution issued thereon until the 10th of August, 1937, being the execution under which the sheriff’s sale was made. The judgment was, therefore, dormant at the time the execution was issued. Art. 3773, Revised Civil Statutes, 1925. The article mentioned, before it was amended in 1933, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 3773, and which controlled the execution in this case, provided that if no execution was issued within twelve months after the rendition of the judgment, the judgment should become dormant and no execution should issue thereon unless the judgment be revived. There is no showing in the record that the judgment in favor of M. E. Dumas had been revived, but it is well established by the courts of this state that an execution issued upon a dormant judgment is not void but merely voidable and not subject to collateral attack. Ayres v. Duprey, 27 Tex. 593, 594, 86 Am.Dec. 657; Maverick v. Flores et al., 71 Tex. 110, 8 S.W. 636; Odum v. Menafee, 11 Tex.Civ.App. 119, 33 S.W. 129; Taylor et al. v. Doom et al., 43 Tex.Civ.App. 59, 95 S.W. 4; Scott v. McGlothlin, Tex.Civ.App., 30 S.W.2d 511; Collins v. Jones et al., Tex.Civ.App., 79 S.W.2d 175.

There can be no question that the attack made upon the execution in this case by appellant was a collateral one and although the execution was issued upon a dormant judgment, the sale made' by the sheriff to appellee was a valid sale in so far as the execution was concerned. Appellant’s assignments of error in respect to the first contention made by him are, therefore, overruled.

Under his second group of assignments appellant contends that appellee had notice, both actual and constructive, of the deed made by P. Z. Conrad to W. L. Turner on October 22, 1929. We cannot accede to this contention. The record shows that, if there was such a deed, it was never filed in the office of the county clerk nor recorded in the deed records of Yoakum County. The only evidence in the record tending to prove that such a deed was ever executed was the statement in the quitclaim deed executed by Conrad on the 28th of August, 1938. It was recited in the quitclaim deed that Conrad had executed a prior deed to Turner on October 12, 1929. Appellee objected to the introduction of the recitation mentioned but since the deed was not executed until almost a year after the appellee purchased the property at the sheriff’s sale, it could not have constituted notice to appellee when he purchased the property at the sale on September 7, 1937. The question of whether the recitations concerning the prior deed were admissible or were, as contended by appellee, hearsay, therefore, becomes immaterial. Regardless of any statement contained in the deed, it could not have been effective nor have any bearing upon the action of the court in determining the issues in this case.

It is further contended by appellant in this connection that the other deeds in his chain of title constituted notice to appellee and were effective in conveying the title to the property as against the sheriff’s sale, but this contention cannot be sustained for several reasons. In the first place, it was not shown that appellee had any actual knowledge of the existence of any such deeds and, in the second place, they were not filed in the office of the county clerk nor recorded in the deed records of Yoakum County until after appellee had purchased the property at the sheriff’s sale. The only deed in appellant’s chain of title that was filed in the office of the county clerk and recorded prior to the sheriff’s sale was the deed from Turner to Pollard, which was filed January 20, 1936. That deed could not constitute any notice to appellee that a deed had theretofore been executed by P. Z. Conrad conveying the property to Turner because it did not appear in appellee’s chain of title.

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137 S.W.2d 1071, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stanford-v-dumas-texapp-1940.