Supreme Court of Texas 

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No. 21-0065

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Stephen Stelly, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

John E. DeLoach, individually, John E. DeLoach as General

Partner of John E. DeLoach Family Limited Partnership, and 

John E. DeLoach Family Limited Partnership, 

Respondents

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On Petition for Review from the

Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas

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PER CURIAM

Stephen Stelly brought suit against his erstwhile business 

partner, John DeLoach.1 Stelly claimed that DeLoach breached their 

contract by not delivering a real-property deed after Stelly had paid off 

the debt on the original purchase price of the land. Stelly prevailed at 

trial, where the jury found that he owns the land free of any 

encumbrance. The court of appeals reversed and rendered judgment for

1 DeLoach passed away while this case was pending in the trial court. 

His estate continued the litigation. 
2

DeLoach on the single ground that the statute of limitations had run on 

Stelly’s breach-of-contract claim. We reverse the court of appeals’

judgment, and we remand the case to that court for further proceedings.

Stelly has lived on and rented the land in question from the 

original owners since 1999. In April 2000, Stelly and DeLoach decided 

to form a joint farming venture. They purchased farming equipment 

and the 600 acres Stelly lived on from the original owners. They closed 

on the land transaction in October 2000, with DeLoach securing a 

$270,000 loan for the land from Capital Farm Credit. DeLoach’s name 

alone was on the original warranty deed. Next, the agreement between 

DeLoach and Stelly read that “[Stelly] agrees to pay [DeLoach] the total 

notes, taxes, any fees for the 600 acres on F.M. 1663, along with all notes 

on equipment financing by [DeLoach].” DeLoach also agreed to pay 

Stelly $3,500 each month for Stelly to manage sugar-cane operations on 

the property. In exchange, Stelly made payments on the note, and 

allowed DeLoach free use of Stelly’s combine equipment, which he had 

owned individually prior to the parties’ agreement. The handwritten 

agreement concluded with the promise that “[u]pon final payment of 

property, [DeLoach] will deed property over to [Stelly]. Same with all 

equipment purchased.” 

Stelly made all the payments for the cost of the land; by May 2005, 

he had fully repaid DeLoach. In September 2005, both men signed a 

deed transferring approximately two and a half acres of the 600 acres to 

Stelly’s parents for their home. Despite Stelly’s performance, his 

continued use of the land as his home, and DeLoach’s acceptance that 

Stelly could deed several acres to his parents, DeLoach did not transfer 
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the deed to Stelly. In 2008, DeLoach stopped paying Stelly monthly 

payments to manage the land. Finally, in 2015, DeLoach announced 

that Stelly did not own the land and that he intended to sell the 600 

acres. 

Stelly sued DeLoach for breach of their agreement for the sale of 

the land. The jury found that DeLoach materially breached their 

agreement. The trial court rendered judgment on the jury verdict and 

held that Stelly owned the real property and the equipment free and 

clear just as if DeLoach had conveyed title. 

DeLoach appealed, and the court of appeals reversed and 

rendered. That court held that (1) Stelly only pleaded a breach-ofcontract claim, not a trespass-to-try-title claim; (2) the breach-ofcontract claim accrued at the time the breach occurred, which in this 

case was in 2005; and (3) Stelly’s claim was therefore untimely because 

he sued six years after the breach, despite a four-year limitations period 

under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Sections 16.004(a)(1) and

16.051. By contrast, it observed, a trespass-to-try-title claim would have 

been timely. ___ S.W.3d ___, 2020 WL 4689194, at *4-5 (Tex. App.—

Houston [1st Dist.] Aug. 13, 2020). The appellate court therefore had no 

need to address any other issues that DeLoach had raised.

We reverse the court of appeals and remand for further 

proceedings. Under our holding in Brumley v. McDuff,2 Stelly 

adequately pleaded a trespass-to-try-title claim and acquired equitable 

title upon completing payment to DeLoach for the amount of the original 

2 The court of appeals made its decision without the benefit of our 

holding in this case.
4

loan amount. See 616 S.W.3d 826, 832 (Tex. 2021).

A trespass-to-try-title action requires the petition to allege: 

(1) the parties’ real names and residences; (2) a legally sufficient 

description of the premises; (3) the plaintiff’s claimed interest; (4) that 

plaintiff possesses the premises or is entitled to possession; (5) that the 

defendant unlawfully entered and dispossessed the plaintiff of the 

premises and withholds possession; and (6) a prayer for relief. TEX. R.

CIV. P. 783(a)–(e), (g); Brumley, 616 S.W.3d at 832. We held in Brumley

that “these pleading requirements [are] ‘detailed,’ but they are not 

arduous.” 616 S.W.3d at 832. 

Stelly satisfied these requirements. In his petition, he included 

the parties’ names and residences, a description of the premises “with 

sufficient certainty to identify the same,” and the property interest 

claimed. TEX. R. CIV. P. 783(b). The petition prays for relief establishing 

Stelly’s ownership of the entire 600 acres. The petition names the 600 

acres in Chambers County, and the exhibit attached to the pleadings is 

the agreement between Stelly and DeLoach, which describes the land at 

issue as Farm # 2504, “on Hwy 1663 and Oak Island Rd.” The petition 

states Stelly’s claimed ownership, asserts that DeLoach unlawfully 

withheld possession and attempted to sell the land, and prays for 

recognized ownership over the entire parcel. TEX. R. CIV. P. 783(a)–(e), 

(g). 

Under Brumley, Stelly adequately pleaded a trespass-to-try-title 

claim regardless of how that claim was denominated in the petition. See 

Brumley, 616 S.W.3d at 833 n.39 (collecting cases). As in Brumley, every 

party here knew what was at issue and that Stelly sought clear title to 
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the land. See id. at 832. DeLoach had sufficient information about 

Stelly’s claim to prepare a defense, even under a trespass-to-try-title 

claim. In Brumley we held that “[t]hough it would have been better to 

use the statutory ‘trespass to try title’ name to describe their claim, 

there is no doubt that the Brumleys sought ownership of the property

. . . in their pleadings, not merely to ‘adjudicate the supremacy of their 

title.’” Id. at 835 (citing Roark v. Allen, 633 S.W.2d 804, 810 (Tex. 1982)). 

So too, here, there was no doubt that Stelly sought ownership of the 

property and DeLoach had notice throughout the case of what was at 

issue.

DeLoach does not contest that a trespass-to-try-title action where 

equitable title vested would be exempt from the four-year limitations 

period. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 16.051 (exempting recovery 

for real property); Jackson v. Hernandez, 285 S.W.2d 184, 191 (Tex. 

1955). The jury found that an agreement existed between DeLoach and 

Stelly, that Stelly had not breached the agreement, and that DeLoach 

had failed to comply. Under our precedents, this jury determination is 

sufficient to find that Stelly was “vested with an equitable title to the 

property sufficient to enable him to maintain his action in trespass to 

try title.” Johnson v. Wood, 157 S.W.2d 146, 148 (Tex. [Comm’n Op.] 

1941). 

Therefore, without hearing oral argument, pursuant to Texas 

Rule of Appellate Procedure 59.1, we reverse the court of appeals’ 

judgment and remand the case to that court for further proceedings.

OPINION DELIVERED: April 8, 2022