Sterling v. Tarvin

456 S.W.2d 529, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2583
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 26, 1970
Docket17129
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 456 S.W.2d 529 (Sterling v. Tarvin) 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
Sterling v. Tarvin, 456 S.W.2d 529, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2583 (Tex. Ct. App. 1970).

Opinion

OPINION

BREWSTER, Justice.

This is a trespass to try title case.

The plaintiffs, Mr. and Mrs. Richard E. Tarvin, Sr., claimed to have acquired title to the land in dispute under the provisions of the 10 year limitation statute, Art. 5510, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St.

A jury trial was had and the jury found in answer to Special Issue No. 1 that plaintiffs and those under whom they claim had been in exclusive, peaceable and adverse possession of the land in controversy for a continuous period of 10 years before April 1, 1969, using or enjoying same during such 10 year period. This was the only issue in the charge that the jury was required to answer.

Based on this jury finding judgment for title to the land in dispute was rendered for plaintiffs and the defendant has brought this appeal.

Defendant in her Point No. 1 contends that the evidence offered during the trial was inadequate under Arts. 5510 and 5515, V.A.C.S., to make out an issue for the jury on the question of adverse possession in that it was lacking in showing (a) continuous and adverse possession and (b) exclusive possession.

We will here set out facts which we believe the record in the case shows to be undisputed.

During the last part of August, 1967, the plaintiffs had acquired title by deed of a tract of land consisting of approximately 84.6 acres. This tract was composed of a 42.7 acre tract and a 41.9 acre tract. The 42.7acre tract lay on the east side of the 84.6 acre tract and the 41.9 acre tract was on the west side of it.

The following is the relevant history of the record title to the 42.7 acre tract:

On December 19, 1953, J. Dewey Walker deeded the 42.7 acre tract to the Veteran’s Land Board (of Texas). The Veteran’s Land Board then in 1953 entered into a contract of sale with one Lyman H. Gar-retson by which it sold this same 42.7 acre tract to Garretson. Garretson and his wife died in 1955 and on April 16, 1956, the ad-ministratrix of Garretson’s estate sold and conveyed the interest of Garretson in the 42.7acre tract to Richard E. Tarvin, Jr. On May 7, 1956, the administrator of Gar-retson’s wife’s estate sold and conveyed her interest in the same tract to Richard E. Tarvin, Jr. On August 11, 1967, the Veteran’s Land Board deeded their interest in the 42.7 acre tract to Richard E. Tarvin, Jr., and he and his wife did on August 25, 1967, deed the tract to his parents who are the plaintiffs in the case.

The following is the relevant history of the 41.9 acre tract:

On December 19, 1953, J. D. (Dewey) Walker deeded it to the Veteran’s Land Board. In December, 1953, the Veteran’s Land Board entered into a contract of sale by which they agreed to sell and convey this tract to plaintiffs’ son, Jack Tarvin. The Veteran’s Land Board deeded this tract to Jack Tarvin in 1967 and on August 28, 1967, Jack Tarvin and his wife deeded it to his parents, the plaintiffs herein.

These two tracts of land adjoined each other. From 1953 down to April 1, 1969, these two tracts of land, together with the land in dispute, were enclosed inside one fence which completely surrounded them. There was no partition fence that separated any of these tracts from each other.

No part of the land in dispute was included in the descriptions contained in any of the deeds heretofore mentioned that are in plaintiffs’ chain of title to the two tracts above described. The land in dispute lay immediately to the east of and adjoined *532 onto the east side of the 42.7 acre tract. Such land was included in the enclosure made by the fence that surrounded the 41.9 and 42.7 acre tracts. This fence around this land was a 4-strand barbed wire fence that was substantial enough to hold cattle.

The land lying immediately to the east of the tract in dispute had been owned since the 1930s by Mrs. Alta Reynolds Carlton. The deed by which she and her husband acquired that land called for 310 acres. Actually the land in dispute was included in the description in the deed by which Mrs. Carlton acquired title to her tract. On March 29, 1969, Mrs. Carlton, joined by her husband, B. B. Carlton, conveyed to the defendant herein, Vivian Sterling, 72 of her 310 acres. The disputed tract was included in the land described in this deed to defendant, Vivian Sterling. However, at no time from December, 1953, to April 1, 1969, was the land that is in dispute enclosed within the fences that surround Mrs. Carlton’s property. Although the legal title to the disputed tract had apparently been in the defendant’s parents since the 1930s, defendant had never been on such disputed tract prior to April 1, 1969.

Jack Tarvin acquired possession of the 41.9 acre tract about the end of 1953. His brother, Richard E. Tarvin, Jr., took possession of the 42.7 acre tract in May, 1956, which was the time that he acquired the Garretson interest in that tract by deed. Jack Tarvin never did claim the disputed tract for it was on the east end of the two tracts. From May, 1956 until he conveyed the 42.7 acres to his parents in 1967 Richard E. Tarvin, Jr., and his brother, Jack, grazed from 6 to 20 head of cattle and several horses on the two tracts and on the disputed tract and Richard claimed up to the east fence as being his land and he claimed it openly as against everyone. This included the land in dispute. During this entire time he grazed it and cut posts off it. He helped keep the east fence in repair. This was the only fence on the east side of the property and it had no gate through it. His possession was peaceful during the entire time. No one else ever claimed the disputed tract during any of this time. He made the only use that could be made of the property and that was to graze it and cut cedar posts off it. This fence between the Carlton and Tarvin property was not a new fence even in 1953, the time the Tar-vins first became connected with it.

The land in dispute had on it up until recently a deep draw. It was covered mostly with cedar and brush. The land was mostly caliche and had some grass on it that cattle grazed. It had little value up until recently when the Brazos River Authority constructed the dam that formed Lake Granbury. Now the waters of that lake fill the draw and the land has become quite valuable as being lake property.

Richard E. Tarvin, Sr., a plaintiff, was a former Fort Worth Assistant Police Chief. He retired in 1960 and he and his wife then moved to Granbury. From then until 1967 he and his wife looked after the property for their two boys, Jack and Richard E. Tarvin, Jr. The Tarvins bulldozed the east part of the property in 1962 or 1963. In 1967 he and his wife bought the enclosed property from their two boys. He and his wife have kept the east fence in repair for years. He has since getting the property in 1967 had possession of it and claimed everything to the fence lines. Prior to April 1, 1969, he has never known of anyone else making any claim to any of this disputed land adverse to the claims of plaintiffs and their boys. Mrs. Carlton, who conveyed the disputed tract to defendant on March 29, 1969, has called plaintiffs a dozen times since 1960, telling them that cattle had gotten through the east fence and asking them to repair it. This was the same fence that caused the disputed tract to be enclosed in plaintiffs’ enclosure and was the only fence that separated the Carlton property from the Tarvin property.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
456 S.W.2d 529, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2583, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sterling-v-tarvin-texapp-1970.