Court Opinion

ID: 9829743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:34:58.141647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:00.121856
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant filed no answer in the trial court, except a general demurrer and general denial, not indicating in any manner what she desired at the hands of the court, and in this court it has not been intimated in any way that appellees got more of the land than they were entitled to, or that appellant was in any manner injured or prejudiced by the decree of tire court. The entire object seems to have been to obtain a construction of the amendment of 1905 to the statute regulating partition. There is no pretense that the half of the land set apart to the defendants in the suit was not equal in value to the half set apart to appel-lees, nor that it was not in as eligible a position as the other half; but the simple contention is that the law of 1905 was not complied with, because the decree did not in terms say that appellant was entitled to one-fourth of the whole tract, instead of one-half of one-half of the tract, and that a peremptory sale of the land set apart to defendants was not ordered. The rules of pleading are the same now that they were when the case of Glasscock v. Hughes, 55 Tex. 469, was decided, and the amendment of 1905 does not attempt to relieve defendants in a partition suit from setting up their shares and asking that each one be allotted his share, if it is so desired.
The act of 1905 is amendatory of articles 3611 and 3621, Rev. St. The first article *179directs that the court shall enter a decree directing the partition of real estate in accordance with the respective shares of the parties, specifying the share or interest, and shall appoint commissioners to make the partition. Article 3621 provides that, if the commissioners should he of opinion that a fair division cannot he made, they shall report the fact to the court together with their reasons, and, if the court should agree with the report, a sale of the property should he directed and the proceeds of the sale divided. Amended article 3611 provides that, the court shall determine before entering the decree of partition whether the property, or any part, is susceptible of partition and, when determined in the affirmative, a decree directing partition shall he entered, which decree is almost identical with that prescribed in old article 3611. The amendment to article 3621 provides that, in case the court is of opinion that a fair and equitable division cannot he had of the property or any part thereof, it shall order' a sale of that part that cannot be divided and direct that the proceeds be divided. The amendment places the duty of determining whether real property is susceptible of partition, without having a report from commissioners, as was formerly done, and that is the only material change made by the amendment. And yet appellant contends that it has subverted all the rules established by the Supreme Court in regard to partition, and that no decision rendered prior to 1905 is authority on that subject. The authorities cited by this court have not been affected, as to the matters pertinent to this case, by the amendment of 1905. The case of Glasscock v. Hughes, 55 Tex. 461, is directly in point in this ease, and it is approved in Maverick v. Burney, 88 Tex. 560, 32 S. W. 512.
What is stated in Kremer v. Haynie, 67 Tex. 450, 3 S. W. 676, is peculiarly applicable to a ease like this, where a plaintiff seeks to have his part of a parcel of land set apart to him, and the defendants do not ask a partition of their part of the property. It not only authorizes a decree to plaintiffs to their part of the land, but a decree of the balance to the defendants jointly, but it holds that, in the absence of a request upon the part of the defendants, a sale of their part shall not be decreed. “It may be more convenient and suitable to the defendants to hold their share in common; and as the plaintiff has accomplished the object of ’his suit in having his share severed from that of his cotenants, it would be improper to force upon the only parties left to be affected by the decree as to the balance of the land a judgment which they do not ask, and against which they all protest.” Appellees obtained what they sought —a severance of their half of the land from the whole; and if appellant wanted her part severed from that of her codefendant, she ought to have prayed for it in the trial court.
Appellant, in her written argument, states: “It may be seriously doubted whether parties to a suit for partition were ever before required, over their protest, to hold their interests together and undivided.” This case forms no exception to the rule invoked by appellant. The record fails to indicate that any such protest was made in the lower court by either of the defendants, and only one appealed; and it is clear that no such protest was contemplated when the appeal bond was filed because the only parties, the other defendants, who were interested in the partition of their half were not included in the appeal bond, and were brought into this court only by a new bond filed by the order of this court. No protest has to this time been made by Fisher and wife to the proceedings in the court below.
Appellant has no cause of complaint, because the decree did not order the sale of the part of the land set apart to her and her co-defendant. If she wants a sale of the land, the decree gives it to her.
There is no merit whatever in the motion for rehearing, and it is overruled.