Court Opinion

ID: 9827519
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:37:03.721934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:32.603236
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing.
[6] Appellants insist that the judgment against Lippincott is one in rem, and therefore that this case is to be distinguished from those authorities cited in our original opinion as supporting our conclusions, and that we should be governed by the case of Taylor v. Snow, 47 Tex. 462, 26 Am. Rep. 311. In this conclusion, however, we are unable to agree. The statement of facts thus presents the judgment as introduced and proven, viz.: “A judgment rendered in the district court of Clay county, November 27, 1905, for $97.56 in favor of the state of Texas, plaintiff, against J. D. Lippincott, sole defendant, for taxes for the years 1895 to 1903, inclusive, on the land in controversy, foreclosing the lien and ordering the said property sold, in which suit the defendant ,T. D. Lippincott was sued as a nonresident and served by publication, to which judgment plaintiff objected” for reasons not material to state. We see no reason to distinguish this judgment from that of any other in which a personal judgment is taken against the defendant with a foreclosure of the lien and think it very widely different from one in rem, if that distinction is of importance in this ease. It is possible that the view of appellants is that, inasmuch as the defendant was sued as a nonresident and served by publication, no personal judgment could be taken against Lippincott in accordance with the rulings in Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 24 L. Ed. 565, and other cases that are quite familiar in the minds of the profession. But there was nothing in the record before us that conflicts with the inference that, notwithstanding the citation by publication, Lippin-cott answered in the suit, and every inference we think is to be indulged in favor of the conclusion of the trial court. Upon this branch of the case, and as supporting our original conclusion, we also wish to cite an article of our statute that escaped the writer upon the original hearing, viz., article 2390, which reads as follows: “The death of the defendant after the execution is issued shall operate as a supersedeas thereof, but the lien of the execution, when it has been acquired by a levy, shall be recognized and enforced by the county court in the payment of the debts of the deceased.”
[7] Appellants further insist that there is no proof of the nonpayment of the notes given by Lippincott to appellee for the land, the burden to do which is upon appellee; but in this, too, we think appellants mistaken. The deed from Wm. Taylor to Lip-pincott which was read in evidence without objection shows that the entire consideration was evidenced by promissory notes, and the statement of facts shows that “plaintiff (Wm. Taylor) proved that the said deed from Mollie E.. Lippincott was executed by the said Mollie E. Lippincott, and that she was paid the sum of $10, and that the vendor’s lien notes „for the sum of $700 each executed by J. D. Lippincott to Wm. Taylor were canceled and surrendered to her when she executed the deed.” This at least authorizes the conclusion that the vendor’s lien notes had not been paid, and that hence the legal title remained in Wm. Taylor, as we concluded in our original opinion.
[8] Appellee also presents a motion for rehearing assigning error to our failure to act upon his cross-assignments going to the action of the court in denying him rents; but the cross-assignments were never filed in the court below and hence are not to be considered. Patterson v. Seeton, 19 Tex. Civ. App. 430, 47 S. W. 733; Morrow v. Terrell, 21 Tex. Civ. App. 28, 50 S. W. 735.
The motions for rehearing by all parties are, accordingly, overruled.