Wilson v. Cone

179 S.W.2d 784, 1944 Tex. App. LEXIS 678
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 13, 1944
DocketNo. 4359.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 179 S.W.2d 784 (Wilson v. Cone) 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
Wilson v. Cone, 179 S.W.2d 784, 1944 Tex. App. LEXIS 678 (Tex. Ct. App. 1944).

Opinion

PRICE, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court of Pecos County. Plaintiffs, Mrs. Luella Wilson and others, sued Mrs. Mary Lou Hanson, Mrs. Myrtle Cato Mendell, and the Security State Bank of Pecos, to recover certain Public School Land situated in the County of Pecos. The trial was to the court without a jury, the judgment in favor of the defendants. From this judgment plaintiffs in the cause have perfected this appeal.

Mrs. Hanson will be hereinafter referred to as appellee, and the plaintiffs as appellants.

Appellants’ petition was in the form of trespass to try title and also was an attack on a judgment of the District Court of Pecos County, Texas, 83rd Judicial District. Appellees answered with the stereotyped plea of not guilty; some of them plead the judgment attacked by appellants in bar as res judicata of all the issues in plaintiffs’ petition, others plead it both in abatement and in bar; likewise the answer of defendants plead the three, four, five and ten years’ statutes of limitation.

The judgment awarded defendant Myrtle Cato Mendell title to Section 26 of the lands in controversy and the south one- *785 half of Section 14. While the appeal is from, the judgment as a whole, appellants do not in their brief question the judgment awarding a recovery to Mrs. Mendell.

The facts of this case are practically undisputed. This is meant in the sense that there is no conflict' in the testimony, and the findings of fact made by the trial court in the judgment are not assailed.

Appellee is the surviving wife of I. 0. Hanson, deceased; appellants, daughters of I. O. Hanson, deceased, by a former marriage. The Security State Bank of Pecos has a deed of trust on the property given by appellee.

I. O. Hanson died about January 1, 1925. Appellee has never remarried. Prior to his last marriage, I. O. Hanson purchased from the State, on deferred payments and on condition of settlement, the lands in controversy. He made due proof of occupancy. A short time after or before his marriage with appellee, his payments becoming delinquent, the Commissioner of the General Land Office forfeited his purchase. The purchase was not reinstated during his lifetime and he made no application to repurchase. A short time after his death appellee duly and legally qualified as the administratrix of the community estate. There was no other administration on his estate.

On February 26, 1928, appellee made application to repurchase the land in controversy, the application reciting that same was made under Chapter 94, Act approved March 19, 1925, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 5326a. The respective applications were each signed “Mrs, I. O. Hanson, applicant, wife of I. O. Hanson, deceased.” On March 30, 1928, there was filed in the General Land Office a certified copy of the order of the County Court of Ward County appointing appellee community admin-istratrix. A short time thereafter the lands were awarded to appellee, the deferred obligations being signed “Mrs. I. O. Hanson,” and the cash payment required being paid with her individual funds. This purchase continued from its date to this time in good standing, and ap-pellee has paid all interest thereon.

On the 23rd day of January, 1931, in her individual capacity and as community administratrix, appellee filed a suit in the District Court of Pecos County, 83rd Judicial District, seeking to recover from appellants the land in controversy here. The allegations were the stereotyped allegations of a petition in trespass to try title. The concluding portion of the prayer was as follows:

“ * * * and for such other and further relief, both general and special, in both law and equity, to which plaintiff in her individual capacity and/or as community administratrix, is justly entitled, etc.”

Appellants here were each personally cited and there filed answers. On the trial none of them appeared in person. The trial was before the court, judgment was in favor of the plaintiff (appellee here), that she recover of the defendants there (appellants here) the title and possession of the lands in controversy here.

Much of the controversy here centers around the effect of this judgment, and, even at the expense of lengthening this opinion, we here reproduce the salient features of same, omitting therefrom the description of the property, the names of the defendants and the paragraph adjudging costs:

“On this 19th day of September, 1931, came on regularly to be heard the above entitled and numbered cause, came the plaintiff in person and by attorney and all defendants having been duly cited in terms of the law herein, and having filed answer herein, further came not and otherwise wholly made default, and the plaintiff having announced ready for trial, and said defendants not further answering, the court heard the reading of plaintiff’s petition, and the evidence offered by plaintiff thereunder, and the argument of counsel thereon, and the court is of the opinion, and so finds that:
“1st: That the plaintiff, Mrs. M. L. Hanson, is a widow and feme sole, and that she has so remained a widow since the death of her husband, I. O. Hanson, on or about the 2nd day of Jany. 1925.
“2nd: That all the lands described in Plaintiff’s petition, were awarded by the Commissioner of the General Land Office of the State of Texas, to Mrs. I. O. Hanson, on or about April 24th, 1928, and that the plaintiff herein, Mrs. M. L. Hanson, is the same person as Mrs. I. O. Hanson.
“3rd: That the moneys paid for the said land to the State, and used in improving the same, was out of the separate and *786 individual funds of the said Mrs. M. L. Hanson, and that none of same was money of the Community Estate of I. O. Hanson.
“It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed by the court that the plaintiff, Mrs. M. L. Hanson, do have and recover of and from the defendants, * * * the title and possession of the following described lands in Pecos County, Texas, free and clear of all claims of said defendants, or any one or more of them to-wit: * * * for all of which lands and premises due writ of restitution and possession may issue in favor of plaintiff herein.
“It appearing to the court from the evidence herein that since the filing of this suit, said plaintiff has deeded and contracted to convey the above lands, therefore this above decree shall enure to the benefit of any and all heirs and assigns of the said Mrs. M. L. Hanson, and it. is so ordered.”

No appeal was ever perfected from this judgment.

Appellants here assail this judgment on various grounds. Appellee and her co-defendants rely on same as a prior adjudication in their favor of all the-issues as to the title of these lands.

• Appellants assert that the judgment is not final, in that same fails to dispose of plaintiff 'in her capacity as community ad-ministratrix; that same is unintelligible and adjudicates nothing; that same is shown to be fraudulent, in that a conflict 1 between the interests of the plaintiff in her individual capacity and in her capacity as administratrix appears therefrom.

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Bluebook (online)
179 S.W.2d 784, 1944 Tex. App. LEXIS 678, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilson-v-cone-texapp-1944.