Court Opinion

ID: 9775101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:43:48.29941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:20.481387
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Culver
dissenting.
I do not agree that the description in this deed is so uncertain and insufficient as to render it void and of no effect. For seventeen years after its recordation in the deed records of Hardin County no question was ever raised as to its validity.
By oversight and inadvertence the names of the county and state and survey in which the land was situated were omitted. The cases all hold I think that the omission of the county and state is not fatal but the location of the land may be inferred and established from the recording of the instrument in the county records. The deed appears to have been recorded in no other county than that of Hardin County where the land is located. Easterling et al., v. Simmons et al., Texas Civ. App., 293 S.W. 690, wr. ref.; Miller v. Hodges, Texas Com. App., 260 S.W. 168.
With the state and county in which the land is situated being thus established, the facts in this case seem to me to fall squarely within and be ruled by the doctrine announced by the Supreme Court in Pickett et al. v. Bishop, 148 Texas 207, 223 S.W. 2d 222, 223. In that case the court held:
“The settled rule in this state is that such a description by reason of the use in the memorandum or contract of such words as ‘my property’, ‘my land’, or ‘owned by me’, is sufficient when it is shown by extrinsic evidence that the party to be charged and who has signed the contract or memorandum owns a tract and only one tract of land answering the description in the memorandum.” See cases cited.
In the case of Sanderson v. Sanderson, 130 Texas 264, 109 S.W. 2d 744, 746, Com. App., the court held in a suit for specific performance in the following language in the contract to describe sufficiently the land as follows:
“Mrs. Kelton also agrees to give all income derived from her farm located in Haskell County to Mrs. Sanderson during the *412lifetime of Mrs. Sanderson, after the death of Mrs. Kelton * * *” and declares:
“The sufficiency of description of the farm in Haskell County cannot be determined on demurrer. If the evidence establishes the fact that Mrs. Kelton owned only one farm in Haskell County at the time the contract was executed, the description will be sufficient.”
The suit here was between the grantor and the grantee. The rights of no third party had intervened. There was no uncertainty in the minds of either party as to the identity of the property sought to be conveyed. The language used in the deed conveyed “our undivided interest amounting to a one-seventh of the below described tract or parcel of land as follows; * * The petitioner-grantor testified and admitted the execution of the deed. A fair appraisal of her testimony would warrant the finding that she owned no other land in Hardin County and certainly owned no other tract of land in Hardin County which would fit the description in this deed. She had inherited such interest from her mother and the deed records so disclosed. There was also introduced in evidence a prior oil and gas lease which she had executed on these premises.
“The sole purpose of a description of land as contained in a deed of conveyance is to identify the subject-matter of the grant. * * * The rule generally adopted for determining the sufficiency of a description contained in a deed is that if there appears therein enough to enable a party familiar with the locality to identify the premises intended to be conveyed with reasonable certainty, to the exclusion of others, it will be sufficient.” Easterling v. Simmons, supra, 293 S.W. 693.
To identify the tract conveyed no oral testimony was necessary. Resort need only be had to the deed records of Hardin County.
Both the trial court and the Court of Civil Appeals have held that the description is sufficient to identify the land with certainty. Any other conclusion would emphasize form rather than substance and operate to work an injustice upon the grantee who had accepted the deed and paid the consideration in good faith and permit the grantor both to keep title to the land and retain the consideration.
I would affirm the disposition of the case made in the courts below.
*413Opinion delivered May 13, 1953.
Rehearing overruled June 17, 1953.