Court Opinion

ID: 9832036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:33:55.740541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:41.358332
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The motion for rehearing is practically a reproduction of appellant’s brief in so far as the matters urged and the arguments to sustain them are presented. We have carefully reviewed the entire record and considered the cases which we cited and which it is urged in the motion should control the decision, and we are forced to adhere to our ■original holding.
[9] We did not discuss in the original opinion the question of the introduction of the maps and their effect at any length. Article 5306, Yernon’s Sayles’ Civil Statutes (Act of January 26, 1858), makes it the duty of every district, 'county, or special surveyor, to plat once in every 3 months all surveys made in such district or county, upon the map of his district or county, to that date; and requires him to send sketches thereof, with the field notes of same, to the General Land Office; and by its provisions subjects him to a fine of $500 in the event he should fail to do so. Five maps from the Land Office appear in the statement of facts. Some of them are not dated, others bear date in 1879, but they all appear to be- maps of block 0-3, and the adjoining blocks, 0-4, S-l, J-K, J-K 2, J-K 3, and in some instances showing sections 66, 67 and 68 of block M-13 on the north. These, with a sixth map, prepared by Thomas P. Whitts, show without exception • that block C-3 is located on the base line running east from the sod monument established by Sum-merfield at the northeast corner of section 9, in block J-K. The evidence showing without contradiction that these blocks are all office surveys constructed with reference to the base line which we described at length in the original opinion and that except such base line, no actual survey was made on the ground, we must presume that these maps are a reproduction of the office work required to .be returned to the Land Office by the above statute, showing the acts of the surveyor in the location of said blocks.
[10] Since they constitute, under the statute, a necessary part of the grant, there is shown a conflict with the calls in the field notes of section No. 1, in block 0, wherein it is sought to tie the northwest .corner of that section to surveys No. 124 in block M-8 and No. 1 in’ block M-13, 12 and 15 miles away, respectively. Since these maps are a part of the record' and properly so, we think it was the duty of the trial judge to submit them to the jury for whatever they are worth.
[11] The call for M-13 and M-8, in the field notes of section 1, block C-3, are descriptive, and not locative calls. As said in Stafford v. King, 30 Tex. 273, 94 Am. Dec. 304:
“There is another rule to be observed in estimating these natural and artificial calls. They are divided into two classes: Descriptive' or directory, and special locative calls. The former, though, consisting of rivers, lakes, and creeks, must yield to the special locative calls, for the reason that the latter, consisting of the particular objects upon the lines or corners of the land, are intended to indicate the precise boundary of the land, about which the locator and surveyor should be, and are presumed to be, very particular ; while the former are called for without any care for exactness, and merely intended to point out or lead a person into the region or neighborhood of the tract survey, and hence not considered as entitled to much credit in locating the particular boundaries of the land when they come in contact with special locative calls, and must give way to them.”
In Finberg v. Gilbert, 104 Tex. 546, 141 S. W. 85 (4), it is said:
“Nor can there any longer be any doubt as to the rules, in such cases, which are to govern courts in the location and identification of such grants. This was stated, with his usual cleax*ness and masterful grasp, by Judge Stayton in Boon v. Hunter, 62 Tex. 592, where he uses this language: ‘The rules for the determination of boundaries, when a patent has been issued on a survey actually made, have been so often stated that it is not deemed necessary to repeat them; and, if it be not shown that no survey was made, such survey will be presumed. It is, however, not believed that the same rules in regard to the lines and corners of other surveys called for in a patent can be applied, when it clearly appears that no actual survey was ever made, and in such case it becomes necessary to look to all matters of description contained in the patent, in order to determine what particular land was conveyed and intended by the state and the grantee to be conveyed by the patent. If, in such case, from a consideration of all these, in connection with the facts surrounding the parties, and the transactions to which the parties looked at the time the patent was Issued, the thing granted can be with certainty identified, then the grant ought not to be held void; but such matters of description as were evidently' given by mistake should be disregarded, and effect given to the calls which are certain and are found, which, in connection with other matters of description contained in the grant, will make it conform to the evident intention of the parties’ ”—citing a number of authorities.
[12] We must presume under the requirement of the statute above quoted, that when the state issued the patent in the case of block 0-3 or any subdivision thereof, to the grantee, that the Land Commissioner had not only the field notes, but the plat returned with the field notes by the surveyor, before him, and if the jury “from a consideration of all these, in connection with the facts surrounding the parties, and the transaction to which the parties looked at the time the patent was issued” can identify the grant with certainty, the subject-matter thereof should be located accordingly.
[13, 14] The conflict between the maps and the field notes required the court to resort to parol evidence to ascertain, if possible, the footsteps of the surveyor, and if it should appear that the calls for block M-13, and block M-8 “were evidently given by mistake, they should be disregarded and effect given to the calls which are certain and are found in connection with other matters of description contained in the grant, will make it conform to the evident intention of the parties.”
*491[15] The holding in the original opinion, to the effect that the field notes of block J-K, which call for the lines of block 0-3, should have their due weight, is also criticized, for the reason that it is contended block J-K is a junior survey. While the date of the field notes sustains appellant’s contention, with reference to the priority of 0-3 when the real facts are known, viz., that the base line was the only survey actually made, and that all of 'said blocks were constructed evidently within the three months’ time permitted by the statute for returning the plats and field notes to the Land Office, we are not willing to concede that J-K is a prior survey; but if we admit such to be the fact, it is said in Finberg v. Gilbert, supra (9):
“Numerous objections were made on the trial to the introduction of all the maps produced in evidence, as well as to the testimony of the surveyors. We think that, if and when the field notes of the different sections of block 3 are introduced and the location of section 71, S. P., is shown, these subsequently made maps would be properly receivable in evidence, for whatever they might be worth as throwing light on or as corroborative of the location of the land in suit as originally fixed and placed.”
In Robinson v. Doss, 53 Tex. 509, in summarizing what had been previously said in the opinion, Judge Gould uses this language:
“The maps of these surveys as they have been ever since the surveys were made, locate the corner according to distance. The evidence given by those who assisted in making these surveys, and the action of one of those parties, himself a surveyor, in the calls of an adjoining survey made by him a few weeks afterwards, show that the eastern lines and corners of the Barnett were not actually surveyed and marked, and show what was understood at the time to be the relative position of the Scott southeast corner and the Barnett northeast corner. Rejecting the single call and laying off the eastern part of the survey according to course and distance, we carry out the manifest intention to make a rectangular survey, occupying with reference to the Scott, the relative position indicated on the published maps, and by the field notes of the two surveys, as recognized in all the subsequent adjoining surveys of that period. The case is one in which adherence to the general rule would be to defeat the reason and object of the rule. We think, it equally clear that if the plaintiff has been misled by the calls of the patent, it has been because of his own neglect to make that examination into the surrounding circumstances which he should have made before undertaking to locate on lands recognized in the General Land Office and on the official maps as having been patented.”
[16] Ordinarily, the call for the northwest corner of survey No. 1 in this block is of no more dignity than the call for the southwest comer of survey No. 5; the latter call is for a mound. While it is trae that Summerfield testified that when he called for a mound it meant a point, if this point can be located upon a well-marked line, by course and distance from the sod mound it should unquestionably control a call for an unmarked comer 12 or 15 miles away, which the surveyor admits he never saw and knew nothing about, and which is purely a descriptive call. Thatcher v. Matthews, 101 Tex. 122, 105 S. W. 317. In Lilly v. Blum, 70 Tex. 704, 6 S. W. 284, and Boon v. Hunter, 62 Tex. 582, the question of the proper rule, which should govern in locating the boundaries of surveys not actually established on the ground, is again fully discussed. These cases approve the holding in Stafford v. King, supra, but the opinions are too long to be quoted here. We think they, together with the authorities cited in the original opinion, sustain our holding in this case. The conflict created between the calls in the field notes of section. No. 1 on the one hand, and the maps and calls for block C-3 in the field notes of the-contiguous sections in blocks J-K, J-K 2, and J-K 3 authorized the court to admit the testimony of Summerfield, and to submit to the jury the question as to where the block was actually located on the ground. We cannot agree with appellant that it was a question of law, and the motion is overruled.