Court Opinion

ID: 9833550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:49:29.690311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:04.214535
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION EOR REHEARING.
In the written argument submitted by counsel for appellees with their motion for rehearing, the contention is earnestly if not vehemently made that the judgment of this court is wrong, because J. B. Thetford acted fraudulently towards his wife when he attempted to convey the land in controversy to Brook Beall; but the record fails to show that any such issue was distinctly tendered by the pleadings or tried in the court below. The most that appellees alleged was, that Brook Beall procured the deed in question, forged as it was alleged and found by the jury to have been, so far as Mrs. Thetford was concerned, to be recorded, and that he used it to obtain a loan on the land. Nowhere in the pleadings did appellees accuse their father, be it said to their credit, of any participation in the alleged forgery, and no such issue, if raised by the evidence, was submitted to the jury. Possibly their petition might admit of the construction that such charge was impliedly made against J. B. Thetford; and it may be, if forgery there was, as found by the jury, that the evidence tended to implicate him. If, therefore, the issue be a material one, and it was not fully developed in the pleadings and evidence, it would perhaps be our duty to remand the cause, instead of here rendering judgment against the appellees.
It is insisted, on the assumption that the issue of Thetford’s fraud was involved, that the cases cited by us as authority for the judgment we have rendered are only applicable where the husband acts in good faith towards the wife, and quotations from opinions in one or more of these cases are cited to sustain this view. But in using the language quoted the. court had under consideration the effect upon the homestead rights of the wife of the husband’s manner of exercising his superior right as the head of the family to abandon one homestead for another.
There is the following difference, however, between this case and that of Marler v. Handy, 88 Texas, 421, the first cited as authority in our original opinion. Here the deecj of the husband never became operative *155as a conveyance, by estoppel or otherwise, during his life or the life of the wife, while in Marler v. Handy, on account of the abandonment of the homestead, it did. We may also add, that but for the explanation-offered by Chief Justice Gaines in Stallings v. Hullum, 89 Texas, 431,, there would seem to be a conflict between the opinion in that case, holding the deed of the husband to the homestead to be absolutely void as to the wife where she does not join in its execution, and the opinion of Justice Brown in Marler v. Handy, holding, in accordance with what appears to have been the rulings in previous cases, such deed of the husband to be merely inoperative so long as the property remains the homestead, but to become effective as a conveyance, by way of estoppel, when; it ceases to be the homestead. This seeming conflict was thus reconciled, by Chief Justice Gaines: “In Irion v. Mills, 41 Texas, 310, the husband alone had executed a deed to the .homestead. Both he and Ids' wife died, and administration was taken out on his estate. The administrator intervened in a suit between third parties for the property, and it was held that he was estopped by his intestate’s deed. But there-was no party to the suit who claimed in any manner under the wife. The decision in that case is in harmony with the very recent case of Marler v. Handy, 88 Texas, 421, in which-it was held that the deed to-the homestead executed by the husband alone operated by way of estoppel to pass the title to the grantee, upon the acquisition by the grantor of a new. homestead for his family, provided such acquisition was not made with intent to defraud the wife of her interest in the former homestead. The wife having ceased to have any interest in the former homestead as such, no reason was seen to exist why the deed should not take effect. It is said in that case that the deed is not void; but it was. not meant that it was valid as to the wife, or that it could in the slightest manner affect her rights before a new homestead was acquired. The-fact that it was held in those cases that the deed was not so far void as to prevent it from operating by way of estoppel against the husband,, when the wife’s interest may cease, does not justify the conclusion that it was to have any operation whatever so long as her right of homestead, in the property should continue to exist.”
We have concluded, upon closer examination of these opinion and more thorough consideration of the question involved, that we should now hold that the deed of John B. Thetford, which, as before seen, the jury found to be a forgery as to the wife, was not only void as to her but that it only became operative, by way of estoppel, against his heirs, after the homestead ceased. This did not occur till Mrs. Thetford died, when, eo instante, an undivided half thereof, it being community property, descended to her children, who would not be estopped by the warranty deed of their father from asserting a title derived by inheritance from their mother in the absence of a finding that they had received from their father’s estate enough property to render them liable on his warranty. If the homestead had been abandoned during the lives of Thetford and wife, he might then have conveyed the entire prop*156erty, and the case of Marler v. Handy would seem to be authority for holding that a deed previously made by him should be given the same effect by way of estoppel. As was said by Justice Brown in that case of the decision in Irion v. Mills, 41 Texas, 310, “The effect of the decision is to hold that the husband would have been estopped by his deed to assert title in the land after the time when he could have made a conveyance of it.” Such cases seem analogous to those in which an after-acquired title is held to pass by estoppel to the grantee, his heirs, or assigns. Lindsay v. Freeman, 83 Texas, 257, and cases cited, particularly Comstock v. Smith, by Judge Stayton in Wadkins v. Watson, 86 'Texas, 194. If J. B. Thetford had survived his wife, with or without ihe abandonment of their homestead, he could not then have conveyed her community interest in the property, and a deed previously made by him while the property was ,the homestead, and when he was consequently equally without power to convey, should not be given any greater •effect. Inasmuch, then, as the homestead immunity prevented the deed of 'Thetford from operating as a conveyance at the time it was made, and inasmuch as this satus never changed till, upon the death of his wife, one-half of the property descended to her heirs, no title to or power of disposition over that half ever vested in him or his heirs, and there was .at no time anything (to.borrow an expression from appellant’s brief) '“to feed the estoppel” except the other half interest, which we hold passed to Brook Beall’s assigns by estoppel. In this connection see the late case of Garner v. Black, 3 Texas Ct. Rep., 635. Clearly, as to the lialf interest which descended from J. B. Thetford to his children, they would not be heard to set up any fraud of his towards his wife or anybody else, in avoidance of the estoppel created by his deed to Brook Beall.
It follows, therefore, that the issue of fraud on the part of J. B. Thetford becomes immaterial, and that the recovery, by appellees, who were plaintiffs below, should be limited to the one-half interest inherited ■from their mother, and- that the foreclosure given the mortgage company should cover only the other half interest; that is, on the assumption that the finding that the deed was a forgery as to Mrs. Thetford must be sustained, and we think, as intimated in the original opinion, it must.
In the last ground of the motion for rehearing, complaint is made that we erred in finding that no relief was sought on the ground that the deed to Brook Beall was but a pretended sale of the homestead for the purpose of obtaining a loan, and we are referred to the supplemental ■petition for allegations pleading that issue, but no such allegations are there to be found. Evidently counsel who prepared the motion mistook ihe contents of the supplemental pleading. That would be a different cause of action from the one pleaded and would be barred by limitation. Hence the cause need not be remanded to have it pleaded.
The rehearing will be granted and the judgment reformed, so as to limit the recovery of appellees to an undivided half interest in the land *157sued for, but will be reversed and here rendered denying any further recovery and granting to the mortgage company a foreclosure of its lien, with costs of its cross-action, on the other half interest, but in other respects the judgment will stand affirmed, with costs of the appeal taxed against appellees.
Writ of error refused.