Trigg v. Whittenburg

129 S.W.2d 472
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 30, 1939
DocketNo. 4980.
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 129 S.W.2d 472 (Trigg v. Whittenburg) 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
Trigg v. Whittenburg, 129 S.W.2d 472 (Tex. Ct. App. 1939).

Opinions

FOLLEY, Justice.

This appeal involves the action of the trial court in sustaining general demurrers to the petition of the plaintiff in error, Ed Trigg, and the dismissal of his cause of action upon his refusal to amend his pleadings. We shall designate the parties as they were known in the trial court.

The plaintiff, Ed Trigg, filed the amended petition herein involved on July 23, 1937, the original petition having been filed on November 29, 1935. The heirs and legal representatives of J. A. Whitten-burg, deceased, and the Phillips Petroleum Company, lessee of Whittenburg, were the •defendants below. The suit involves the title and possession of portions of a certain tract of land in Hutchinson County, Texas, containing 525.2 acres. Without leave of the court Newton P. Willis filed a plea of intervention in the suit alleging his right to intervene as a citizen and taxpayer in behalf of himself and other taxpayers, and prayed that judgment be entered to the effect that the land in question belonged to the public free school fund of Texas. Upon motion of the defendants his plea of intervention was stricken by the court. The plaintiff and the intervener both assign such action of the court as error.

. The. plaintiff’s petition shows on its face that this identical land was involved in a suit in the District Court of Travis County in which case the State of Texas, J. A. Whittenburg, Phillips Petroleum Company and the plaintiff Ed Trigg, were all parties. The Travis County suit was filed by the State of Texas through its Attorney General in the nature of an action in trespass to try title. Trigg was made a party defendant by the State in such cause. He filed his answer which, in effect, was a plea of not guilty, and further affirmatively asserted title to the land against the State and the other defendants therein. On November 26, 1928 judgment was rendered in such suit by the trial court in favor of the State of Texas for the title and possession of the 525.2 acres of land subject to the rights of Ed Trigg to purchase said land from the State of Texas under and pursuant to his application theretofore made under the provisions of article 5323 of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1925. An appeal from that judgment was prosecuted by the other parties to the Court of Civil Appeals at Austin, in which court the judgment of the trial court was reversed and judgment rendered that the State of Texas and Ed Trigg take nothing as against the appellants therein, J. A. Whittenburg, Phillips Petroleum Company and others not necessary to mention. The opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals at Austin, upon which the judgment of such court was based, may be found in 63 S.W.2d 737 in the cause therein denominated Phillips Petroleum Co. et al. v. State et al. We refer to such opinion for such basic facts as we deem unnecessary to restate here. After the rendition of the judgment by the Court of Civil Appeals in such cause the State of Texas and Ed Trigg filed an application for a writ of error in the Supreme Court of Texas. This application was refused by the Supreme Court by its judgment dated June 13, 1934. All the relevant facts with reference to the Travis County suit, together with all the proceedings in such cause from its inception to the refusal of a writ of error by the Supreme Court, affirmatively appear from the allegations of the plaintiff in this suit and from the exhibits attached thereto. The defendants herein, by way of general demurrer, interposed the Travis County cause and the final decree therein as res adjudicatá to the claims now asserted by the plaintiff in this suit.

It is evident from the plaintiff’s pleadings herein that in the former suit the State of Texas and Ed Trigg recovered the 525.2 acres as vacant lands of the Mary Whitley Survey, the patent thereto having been issued to the original grantee, under whom Whittenburg held,- long prior to the accrual of any claims of the plaintiff to the land. In reversing and rendering the judgment of the trial court in the former case the Court of Civil Appeals held that no such vacancy existed as. was decreed to the State. Plaintiff’s pleadings *474 also show that on July 2, 1929, after the judgment was rendered in the trial court in Travis County and pending the hearing thereon in .the Court of Civil Appeals, the State of Texas awarded to the plaintiff the 525.2 acres of land as unsurveyed school land upon his application of inquiry to the Commissioner of the General Land Office filed on or about March 1, 1926, in accordance with article 5323, supra. This article deals only with un-surveyed school land. In this connection it should be stated that the plaintiff herein based his claim to the land in the Travis County suit upon this application of March 1, 1926. In the instant action his claim is also predicated upon the same application which is now supported by an award pursuant to such application. It therefore follows that the only condition that now exists which did not exist at the time the original judgment was rendered in the trial'court of Travis County is that the award has been made upon the application sued upon in the former suit.

The chief contention of the plaintiff is based upon the theory that the land in question was school land at the time the certificate was located and patent issued to the original grantees under whom Whit-tenburg held 'title, and, as a part of the public free school fund was not subject to location by a donation certificate. He urges that this question was neither raised nor passed upon in the former action.

Under the circumstances surrounding the award above stated it is apparent that any title obtained by Trigg under such award was acquired pendente lite. Since the application upon which the award was based was the only ground upon which Trigg sought recovery in the former suit his rights under such application were adjudicated in the Travis County action. The decree of the Court of Civil Appeals in such suit adjudged “that judgment be here rendered so that the appellees, the State of Texas and E. B. Trigg, take nothing as against the appellants, * * * J. A., Whittenburg, * * * Phillips Petroleum Company, but that said appellants go hence without day and recover of and from the appellees, the State of Texas, and Ed B. Trigg, all costs in this behalf expended, both in the trial court and in this court, and that this decision be certified below for observance.” While the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals shows that the only questions discussed related to vacancy,, there is nothing in the opinion or the decree based thereon which preserved to the State of Texas or to Ed Trigg any right to thereafter assert title to the same land under a different theory of recovery. There is equally absent from such opinion and the decree any language showing that the usual and ordinary result of a failure to establish title should not be binding upon the State of Texas and the plaintiff Trigg. In Anderson, Clayton & Co. et al. v. State ex rel. Allred, Atty. Gen., et al., 122 Tex. 530, 62 S.W.2d 107, 110, Judge Sharp, speaking for the court said: “* * * where a state voluntarily files a suit and submits its 'rights for judicial determination, it will be bound thereby, * $ ‡»

It is bur opinion that article 7391 of the Revised Civil Statutes of Texas is controlling of the- situation herein involved.

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Bluebook (online)
129 S.W.2d 472, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/trigg-v-whittenburg-texapp-1939.