Court Opinion

ID: 9667888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:57:10.126909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:41.286219
License: Public Domain

CADENA, Chief Justice,
concurring.
While I agree with the result, I am not comfortable with the language found in Hamilton v. Hamilton, 154 Tex. 511, 280 S.W.2d 588, 593 (1955), which is quoted in the Court’s opinion. Hamilton concludes that a partition deed does not operate as a conveyance or transfer of title because the only effect of a partition deed is:
“to divide the property and give to each the share which he already owned by virtue of some prior deed or other conveyance. [citations omitted] ... the reason being that the parties already owned their respective interests and a partition deed from one to another is not the conveyance of title but merely the division of the property so that each may have the exclusive use and occupancy and the right to dispose of as he sees fit his own land, to make it in a form certain instead of an undivided interest in the whole.”
Such an argument can be seriously made only if we close our eyes in a deliberate effort not to see what has actually happened.
The true effect of a partition is readily apparent if we take the partition between Ed and Amando Canales as an example. The ‘prior’ deeds in this case were the instruments executed in August 1947, conveying the two tracts in question to Ed and his brother Amando. As a result of these conveyances, Ed owned an undivided one-half interest in the 2,820-acre tract, while Amando owned similar undivided interests in each tract. Prior to the 1952 partition, each could have conveyed an undivided one-half interest in either tract, both tracts, or a portion or portions of either of both tracts, but neither could have conveyed the full fee simple interest in either tract or in any portion of either tract. This is true simply because each owned only an undivided one-half interest. After the 1952 partition, Ed could have conveyed the full fee simple interest in the 2,400-acre tract, but was powerless to convey any interest in the 2,820-acre tract, but could convey no interest in the 2,400-acre tract. Stated differently, as a result of the partition, Ed had received Amando’s one-half interest in the 2,400-acre tract, making him the owner of the full interest in that tract, while Aman-do had received Ed’s one-half interest in the 2,820-acre tract, making Amando the owner of the full interest in that tract. These post-partition interests differed radically from the “share which [Amando and Ed] already owned by virtue of” the prior 1947 deeds. As a result of the partition, Amando’s interest in the 2,400-acre tract was transferred to Ed, while Ed’s interest in the 2,820-acre tract was transferred to Amando. However much we may hate to recognize the true situation, the blunt fact is that a transfer of an interest in land is a conveyance.
The fact that a partition of land involves the alienation of a present interest in land was recognized in 1887 in Warlow v. Miller, 69 Tex. 395, 6 S.W. 292, 294 (1887). There the court pointed out: “to partition the land so as to give to each [cotenant] an exclusive ownership of a designated portion in severalty is for each to surrender his interest in the portion allotted to the others.” This is followed by the statement that this release of an interest “is considered by our courts not to be a conveyance of lands within the meaning of the statute of frauds.” However, this last observation cannot be interpreted as a holding that a partition is not a conveyance. The court is merely holding that the type of conveyance evidenced by a partition is not the type of conveyance contemplated by the statute of frauds. This is made clear by the statement, that there is nothing in our statute of frauds that prohibits a *117[parol] conveyance ... of an interest in real estate.” Id.
Despite the obvious defects in the reasoning which leads to the conclusion that a partition is not a “conveyance,” we are of course bound by the holdings of the Supreme Court in Hamilton and other cases decided since the 1887 decision in Warlow v. Miller.
CANTU, J., joins in this concurring opinion.