U. S. Enterprises, Inc. v. Dauley

524 S.W.2d 339, 1975 Tex. App. LEXIS 2724
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 16, 1975
DocketNo. 17621
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 524 S.W.2d 339 (U. S. Enterprises, Inc. v. Dauley) 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
U. S. Enterprises, Inc. v. Dauley, 524 S.W.2d 339, 1975 Tex. App. LEXIS 2724 (Tex. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

OPINION

MASSEY, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a a summary judgment granted upon motion of the defendant Dean I. Dauley, et al. They will be for convenience referred to hereinafter as Dauley Enterprises.

Plaintiff was U. S. Enterprises, Inc., hereinafter termed plaintiff. Plaintiff brought suit for specific performance of contractual promise made July 17, 1972 to convey land in Wise County, Texas, against Coke L. Gage and wife on May 24, 1973. After that suit was brought and while it was pending plaintiff discovered that the Gages had made a sale of land, deemed a part of its own contract, to Dauley Enterprises. By amendment filed December 12, 1973 plaintiff joined Dauley Enterprises as party defendant to its pending suit.

Dauley Enterprises had, in fact, purchased Wise County land from the Gages with knowledge of plaintiff’s pending suit against them. The land purchased by it was described in its deed by metes and bounds and with specification as land within the A. J. Walker Survey, Abstract 860. Without doubt the land purchased by Dau-ley Enterprises was either immediately within or immediately without the total [340]*340body of land plaintiff believed it had contracted to purchase from the Gages. It was on the theory that plaintiff had no valid and enforceable contract with the Gages which in any way affected purchase by Dauley Enterprises that such parties consummated the transfer of title to land in the A. J. Walker Survey. Dauley Enterprises was placed upon actual notice of plaintiff’s claim that by contract the Gages were obligated to deliver the same land to plaintiff at a time prior to that it consummated its purchase from the Gages. Dau-ley Enterprises was furthermore aware of the suit and of the lis pendens plaintiff had placed on file pursuant to its claim.

After being joined as a party defendant by plaintiff in its pending suit against the Gages, Dauley Enterprises moved for summary judgment. Upon hearing summary judgment for Dauley Enterprises was granted. There was severance so that plaintiff’s suit against the Gages might remain pending and the summary judgment become a final and appealable judgment. Plaintiff appealed therefrom.

We affirm the summary judgment.

A theory advanced by Dauley Enterprises was that since the evidence, undisputed for summary judgment purposes, showed that plaintiff had no valid and enforceable contract with the Gages in any event, because there was insufficient description by the Statute of Frauds to any Wise County land, plaintiff could not go through the- Gages and against it. Since a right to maintain plaintiff’s case against the Gages would be an essential prerequisite to any right to maintain a suit against Dauley Enterprises as successor to rights and/or liabilities incident to its purchase, we examined the state of facts in light of the law as recognized by the Supreme Court in Pickett v. Bishop, 148 Tex. 207, 223 S.W.2d 222 (1949).

In Pickett v. Bishop, supra, it is stated to be settled law that the condition of the Statute of Frauds is satisfied relative to the description of land contracted to be purchased if the memorandum of writing, despite failure to locate the property by metes and bounds, etc., sets out such words as “my property”, “my land”, or “owned by me”; that the land description is sufficient because when it is shown by extrinsic evidence that the party to be charged owns a tract, and only one tract of land answering the description in the memorandum, the stated ownership of the property is in itself a matter of description which leads to the certain identification of the property. With this done, the description exhibits compliance with the terms of the rule that the writing must furnish within itself, or by reference to some other existing writing, the means or data by which the particular land to be conveyed may be identified with reasonable certainty.

Plaintiff’s 1972 contract with the Gages stated on its face that the 10 different parcels of land acreage contracted to be conveyed to plaintiff were in Surveys, as follows: (a) J. G. Bullock, Abstract No. 79, (b) David Moses, Abstract No. 537, and (c) J. H. Moore, Abstract No. 538, all in Wise County, Texas. Written into the contract above the signature of the Gages was the following: “Said contract includes all of the land owned in said surveys above described exclusive of the 200 acres in the J. H. Moore Survey described in Paragraph 15 hereof.”

Examination discloses that the 200 acres in the J. H. Moore Survey was land capable of segregation out of the contract and thus a separate and independent contract from the remainder having application to the land in the Bullock and Moses Surveys. The provisions relative thereto, while they might afford to plaintiff the right to an escape from the entire contract on the theory of failure of consideration, may be disregarded for purposes of appeal by plaintiff from the summary judgment awarded Dau-ley Enterprises. Here the question is upon the matter of plaintiff’s right to enforce specific performance — not only against the [341]*341Gages, but through them — against Dauley Enterprises.

If on a trial on the merits plaintiff could show that the land sold by the Gages to Dauley Enterprises lay within the Bullock and Moses Surveys it might be entitled to prevail against Dauley Enterprises by reason of the notice and knowledge passed by the latter at time of the purchase. Unless it could show this, however, it could not so prevail. If, upon a Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment inability to make such proof be demonstrated it would be proper to grant the motion. Our holding is that plaintiff’s inability was proved and that summary judgment was proper.

Dauley Enterprises’ proof showed that its consummated contract of purchase from the Gages was of land lying within the A. J. Walker Survey and that plaintiff’s contract did not entitle it to any specific performance to enforce conveyance of any land in that Survey. As the defendant-movant for summary judgment Dauley Enterprises was not required to show more. Upon such a showing made it became incumbent upon plaintiff, as respondent to the Dauley motion, to come forward with something affirmative to show existence of a fact issue to be tried.

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Related

U. S. Enterprises, Inc. v. Dauley
535 S.W.2d 623 (Texas Supreme Court, 1976)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
524 S.W.2d 339, 1975 Tex. App. LEXIS 2724, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/u-s-enterprises-inc-v-dauley-texapp-1975.