Case Name: Nancy McMillian and others v. M. E. Werner and others
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1872
Citations: 35 Tex. 419
Docket Number: 
Parties: Nancy McMillian and others v. M. E. Werner and others.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Reports
Volume: 35
Pages: 419–420

Head Matter:
Nancy McMillian and others v. M. E. Werner and others.
The statute limiting the time to one year -within -which a second action of trespass to try title may be brought, is a statute of limitation, and clearly within the purview of the forty-third section of the twelfth article of the Constitution of 1870.
Appeal from Walker. Tried below before the Hon. J. R. Burnett.
Plaintiffs instituted suit in the District Court of Walker county at the Spring Term of 1871, in an action of trespass to try title to certain town lots in the town of Huntsville.
Defendants answered, that in 1861, the plaintiffs instituted suit for the same property, in an action of trespass to try title, in the District Court of Walker ■county, against one Piety Price, who then held the land ns tenant of defendant, Mary E. Warner, then Shannon ; that said Mary E. defended the suit; and that on the twenty-ninth of October, 1862, on the trial of the suit, a judgment was rendered in her favor, wherefore she pleads res adjudicaba; and if the plaintiffs ever had a right to bring a second action for the land, the right accrued to them more than one year before the institution of this suit.
Plaintiffs moved to have defendant’s plea of res adjudicaba stricken out, which motion was overruled, and plaintiff excepted. A jury being waived, the case was submitted to the court, and judgment rendered in favor of defendants, from which plaintiffs appealed, and assigned for error:
1. That the court erred in sustaining defendant’s plea of res adjudicaba.
2. The court erred in overruling the plaintiffs’ exceptions to defendants’ plea.
3. The court committed error in holding that the-statute authorizing a second suit in cases of ejectment, within twelve months after the first verdict, is not a statute of limitation, and that the late constitutional provisions relating to statutes of limitation, do not apply in cases like the present.
L. B. Hightower, for appellants.
Randolph & McKinney, for appellees.

Opinion:
Walker, J.
The plaintiffs brought their action ora the seventeenth day of March, 1871, in the District Court-to try title to land. The defendants answered by a plea of res adjudícala, and also plead the general issue. The court sustained the plea of res adjudícala, and overruled the exceptions which were filed to it. It appeared from this pleading that the plaintiffs had filed a, former suit for the same land, against substantially the-same parties, which was determined against them ora the twenty-ninth day of November, 1862. The decision of this court in the case of Crawford v.. Bender (see MSS. opinions of last term), determines the case at bar.
The statute limiting the time to one year within which a second action of trespass may be brought, is a statute-of limitation ; and as clearly within the purview of the-forty-third section of the twelfth article of the Constitution of 1870, as any other statute.
This suit was properly brought within one year after the thirtieth of March, 1870.
The judgment of the district court is reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed, and. remanded.