Court Opinion

ID: 9829974
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:46:05.359282+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:09.839949
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
The appellant in his motion for rehearing-urges with so much zeal the propositions that the trial court erred in finding as a fact that there was no duress and undue influence-which brought about the execution of the agreement to separate between Corrigan and his wife, and the execution of the partition deed, and further insists that there was no definite finding to that effect, and further urges that the case of Rains v. Wheeler, 76 Tex. 390, 13 S. W. 324, does not support this court in its opinion; and, for fear that the-opinion as rendered does hot clearly reveal the full scope of the propositions of law therein decided, we add:
The effect of the finding of facts in subdivision 3, quoted in full in the original opinion, is that, notwithstanding the threats and, the personal violence testified to, there was no duress which was the moving cause of the agreements entered into, or else he did not believe the testimony, so in either event the trial court’s finding is binding upon us where there is any evidence in the record to support it, and this court holds that there is such, evidence.
The cases cited by appellant hold that, as between the parties and as to third parties interested, the husband and wife cannot, by mere agreement, transfer their separate or community property one to the other, and thereby change the class of estate which, the law fixes in each. Cox v. Miller, 54 Tex. 27; Green v. Ferguson, 62 Tex. 529; Kellett v. Trice, 95 Tex. 165, 66 S. W. 51. While Rains v. Wheeler, 76 Tex. 390, 13 S. W. 324, settles the law in this state to be that deeds of separation, made after the separation or when in the act of separating, are valid, so-far as they settle the rights of property between the husband and wife, if made without coercion or undue influence, and the provi*655sions of the partition deed are just and equitable. As said above, the trial court having found against appellant upon all these propositions, the deed becomes valid.
It is clear that this agreement and partition deed were not intended to convey property by one spouse to another, but an equitable division in view of final separation; that is, in view of no longer acting together in the acquisition of .property, which the law fixes as community, or separate, according to its manner of acquisition, but each to take in the future such property as he may acquire as his own, unincumbered by the marital relation.
Hence it follows that property acquired by either spouse after separation, brought about by such an agreement, becomes the separate property of the one who acquired it, free from the claims of the other, because they are no longer, in law, acting together in their legal capacity of husband and wife. And this partition deed being valid and binding, it settled all property rights between the parties, including the homestead rights of appellant.
The original opinion is adhered to, and the motion overruled.