Court Opinion

ID: 9834162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:21:23.896149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:12.281564
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellants and appellees have filed motions for rehearing. Appellants insist that we should have rendered judgment in their favor by sustaining, as the basis for such action, their contention that the court below erred in refusing their request for a peremptory instruction.
Appellees insist that notwithstanding the insufficiency of the verdict to support the judgment, as held in our opinion, the undisputed evidence required a judgment in their favor, and for that reason the judgment should be affirmed. .
The evidence relied upon by appellants as having conclusively established the boun*641dary line in dispute, in accordance with their contention, was that of J. T. Stevens and J. O. Booker. Stevens, eighty-five years of age and a lifetime resident of the community, testified in substance that he knew the location of the southwest and southeast corners of the Newton survey; that the southeast corner was about 10 feet 'south of the Alto-Palestine road; that in 1881 and in 1893 he saw the south boundary line of the Newton between said .corners as marked on virgin timber; that in 1893 he acted as ch'ain bearer in the survey of the Glenn tract which began at the southwest corner of the Newton. He further testified that the line marked on the virgin timber was generally reputed to be the boundary line between the Newton and Gentry surveys.
J. O. Booker, a surveyor in the employ of the Southern Pine Lumber Company, testified from his original notes that in 1912 he surveyed the Newton tract by running old lines marked on virgin timber, and that the marked southeast corner of the Newton survey was at a point 10 varas south of the Alto-Palestine road, which road all witnesses agreed had been practically unchanged for more than half a century.
The testimony of these witnesses tended to show that the disputed boundary line was located according to the contention of the defendants. In our opinion, therefore, controlling effect cannot properly be given to calls for course and distance, even if reckoned from undisputed beginnings. However, the beginning point was not undisputed, but was predicated upon the surveyors’ conclusion as to the true location of the long disputed south boundary line of the Levi Jordan survey.
In Stafford v. King, 30 Tex. 257, 272, 94 Am.Dec. 304, it was said: “ ‘A call for a natural object, as a river, a known stream, a spring, or even a marked tree, shall control both course and distance.’ * * * When the surveyor points out to the owner rivers, lakes, creeks, marked trees, and lines on the-land, for the lines and corners of his land, he has the right to rely upon them as the best evidence of his true boundaries, for they are not liable to change and the fluctuations of time, to accident or mistake, like calls for course and distance; and hence the rule, that when course and distance, or either of them, conflict with natural or artificial objects called for, they must yield to such objects, as being more certain and reliable.” (Italics ours.)
But, suppose when a contest has arisen and the subject of dispute is submitted for decision, artificial objects which once marked the footsteps of the surveyor have ceased to exist but there are witnesses who can and do testify to their former location ? Should course and distance, if in conflict, be made to yield to such evidence? We think the rule so requires. In Thatcher v. Matthews, 101 Tex. 122, 105 S.W. 317, the court said: “The lines as actually run and the corners as actually established when consistent with other locative calls fix the true boundaries of the survey. The locations of such corners may be proved by any admissible evidence sufficient to lead to a belief of the fact. * * * Where a stake is once placed, it fixes the corner as conclusively as if marked by natural objects. Owing to the fact that it may be removed or obliterated, its location may be more difficult of proof; but, if proved, it fixés the corner with the same certainty as where it is marked by a permanent object. * * * If the place where it was originally located can be established, the call for distance should yield to it," (Italics ours.) This was in accord with what Judge Moore had previously said in Welder v. Carroll, 29 Tex. 317, 318: “If the boundary line between these surveys was run out and marked upon the ground, and it can be ascertained and established by a re-survey, following the calls in the title and map forming a part of it and the ancient landmarks made for its identity by the original surveyor; or, if its locality can be proved by witnesses who can, from their personal knowledge, or on information derived from general reputation, or from its having been pointed out to them by the surveyor by whom it was run, or others who were present at the time or cognizant of the fact (Stroud v. Springfield, Austin term, 1866, 28 Tex. 649) this will fix and mark its position, although there may be a discrepancy between its position thus ascertained and that given it by the calls or plat on the grant.” (Italics ours.)
We would regard the testimony of the two witnesses above named as conclusive if uncontradicted. We have had some difficulty in satisfying our minds that the testimony of the witness Charles F. Holcomb presents a conflict. Our conclusion is that it probably does. Holcomb testified to the effect that some forty-five years previously he owned a part of the Gentry survey and at that time he knew the location of the northeast corner of the Gentry survey, and that it was north of the Alto-Pal*642estine road a distance of about 100, 150, or more, yards. He said the corner was marked by hacks and blazes on trees. As to how the marks identified a corner rather than a north-south line about which there was no controversy, his testimony was indefinite. In addition to testimony of his personal knowledge as to the location of the corner he further testified: “I had the Gentry tract and ran that line — ran the line that went up to that corner and that was always said it was the corner of the Gentry tract.
“Q. Who'said that? A. Most everybody knew it.
“Q'. Well, name them. A. Anybody out there.
“Q. Have you known them? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. Who were they? A. My daddy, I will say, and brother and two or three more that were interested in it.”
We doubt if Holcomb's testimony against an attack challenging its sufficiency would have supported a judgment for the plaintiffs. It suggests the probability that had it been better tested it could have been shown to consist of conclusions or conjectures or hearsay, but it does not sufficiently so appear. From these considerations, we adhere to our former conclusion that the court did not err in refusing to instruct a verdict for the defendants.
The two surveyors, witnesses for the plaintiffs, made the fact clear that the correctness of their survey was dependent upon whether the northeast corner of the Newton survey had been located by Gibson, the original surveyor, in the south boundary line of the Levi Jordan, as located by said surveyors. Both witnesses admitted that the true location of the south boundary line of the Jordan had been in dispute for half a century or more and was called for in different places by the same surveyor, Gibson, within the period of three or four years, which included the. time the Newton tract was surveyed. Both surveyors admitted that since the northeast corner of the Newton was by the field notes located, not only in the south boundary line of the Levi Jordan, but also at the northwest corner of the M. S. Harrison survey No. 342, and the latter survey by the description in its patent called for a number of natural objects, the true northwest corner of the Harrison could probably, be located with reference to such natural objects. It was'admitted that no effort to so locate the corner had been made, but on the contrary, as said before, the corner had been located solely with reference to its being in the supposed -south boundary line of the Levi Jordan survey. Had there been undisputed evidence to show the true location on the ground of the northwest corner of said Harrison survey with reference to the natural objects called for and that, as contended by defendants, it was 174 varas south of the point which plaintiffs' surveyors established as the northeast corner of the Newton survey, we are of the opinion that such evidence, particularly when taken in connection ■ with the testimony of the witnesses Stevens and Booker, would have required an instructed verdict for the defendants. The evidence, however, does not quite measure up to such specifications.
It is, therefore, our conclusion that both motions for rehearing should be and they are hereby overruled.