Court Opinion

ID: 9834054
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:15:50.270605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:11.252973
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
On this rehearing appellants insist most strenuously that a judgment for ap-pellee for the land in controversy has no support in his pleadings; that is, they contend that appellee pleaded specially that the title to the land-in controversy was in appellants, but that he had acquired an easement against it for use in connection with other property owned by him across appellants’ lot in Pine street, and that his pleading was subject to no other construction. We rather think that his original petition was subject to the construction now urged by appellants, but we think the amended petition, upon which the case was tried, is not necessarily subject to that construction. It appears from appellee’s allegations: ,
(1) That he pleaded in trespass to try title, including in the description of the property involved the land now in controversy and awarded to him under our judgment.
(2) That while in his original petition he pleaded that he had an easement across 32 feet on the north end of appellants’ lot, in his amended petition he described this part of the land in controversy as being only 18 feet wide, thus, not involving in that description the 14 feet awarded him, and therefore not confessing title to that 14 feet in appellants.
(3) While appellee did plead specially in his amended, as well as in his original, petition that appellants owned 144 feet on Pine street, fronting about 104 feet on Ash street, appellants’ property being on the corner of Ash where it crosses Pine, yet, he refers generally to the description in the prior conveyances as given in our original opinion, and wo do not think that it necessarily follows that by this pleading he intended to confess title in them to 144 feet on Pine north from the corner where Pine crosses Ash; that is, 144 feet north of the iron stake in the sidewalk, as described in our original opinion. Such an admission on his part, after he abandoned his claim of easement, would have left nothing in dispute between the parties, and it would have been the court’s duty to enter judgment on the pleadings in favor of the appellee. But neither the parties nor the .court gave the pleadings that construction. On the admission of ap-pellee, the 18-foot strip across the north end of appellants’ lot was eliminated, but the *279court heard evidence from both parties as to the ownership of the 14 feet immediately south of appellee’s 2-story house, and being the 14 feet recovered by him. Since appellants tried this case on the theory that the pleadings were sufficient to put in issue the title to the 14 feet, and since the pleadings are subject to that construction, it would ,now be a manifest injustice for us to hold that the pleadings are insufficient to support the trial court’s judgment.
The other points raised in the motion for rehearing were disposed of to our entire satisfaction in the original opinion. Therefore the motion for rehearing is in all things overruled.