Court Opinion

ID: 9833011
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:22:23.124849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:57.656034
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing. ‘
The appellant cites the recent opinion in case of Hawkins v. Britton State Bank (Tex. Com. App.) 52 S.W.(2d) 243, as ruling the contention that the rents and revenues of the wife’s separate property were not subject to the payment of community debts contracted by the husband. The facts of the two cases are different and there is no conflict in the two opinions.
In the present case the husband was owing an indebtedness to the State Bank & Trust Company and pledged as collateral security for the debt certificate No. 1 for 95.125 shares of stock of the Byrne-Roberts Loan Company. The shares of stock were community property and the certificate was in the name of the husband, and the debt; owing the bank *197was a community debt contracted by tbe husband. The husband paid off the debt owing to the bank and thereupon the bank surrendered the certificate of shares of stock to the husband. The money paid to the bank in satisfaction of the indebtedness was the money paid by the Tyler Commercial College for the use of the two copyrights of the writings entitled respectively, “Byrne’s Practical Bookkeeping and Business Training” and “Byrne’s Simplified Shorthand.” The husband had previously given the copyrights to his wife, and such copyrights were her separate property by the gift to her. The Tyler Commercial College had agreed to pay Mrs. Byrne for the use of the two copyrights the sum of $7,000 a year for a period of five years. At a time after the payment of the bank debt and the surrender by the bank of the certificate of shares of stock pledged as security, the husband, H. E. Byrne, purchased from the Tyler Commercial College through its trustees the land in suit, and the deed therefor was made in his name, paying as the entire consideration therefor the said certificate of shares of stock, duly assigned by him. The theory of the appellant appears to be that although the certificate of stock may have been used as the consideration for the land, yet the separate funds of the wife were used to acquire back such stock from the bank, and the husband was therefore holding the title to the land as trustee for her as beneficiary.
In the case of Hawkins v. Bank, supra, the husband as payment of the indebtedness contracted by him conveyed the immature hay growing on the wife’s separate real estate, and certain implements which had been bought with the rents and revenues derived from the wife’s separate real estate.
There was only involved in the Hawkins Case, as readily seen, the simple question of whether or not the rents from Mrs. Hawkins’ separate land could be made subject to the debts contracted by the husband. The court held, and very correctly so, that the rents of the wife’s separate real estate was expressly exempted under terms of article 4616, R. S., from payment of community debts contracted by the husband. That article, though, does not by its terms exempt from payment of community debts of the husband the revenue arising from use or hire of separate property in the nature of copyrights. Copyrights as concluded in our original opinion, are “enjoyable as a legal estate, as other moveable property.” It is not questioned that the revenue arising from its use or hire is community property. Arnold v. Leonard, 114 Tex. 535, 273 S. W. 799, and other cases, including Hawkins v. Bank. No character of community property is exempted under article 4616 except that specifically named in the article. Such of the community property as’ is not expressly protected by the article mentioned may be and is subject to the payment of the community debts contracted by the husband. Speer on Marital Rights (3d Ed.) § 383. Unless the revenue from the use or hire of the copyrights was exempted by article 4616, the theory of the appellant may not legally be predicated upon the facts of the case.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.