Court Opinion

ID: 9832100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:37:02.786377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:42.011068
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
The record as heretofore revealed discloses that the Probate Court of Dallas County, Texas, had acquired jurisdiction over the entire estate of Annie Booth, an insane *1087person, including the land in controversy, prior to the assumption of jurisdiction by the district court. The order of the Probate Court, dated April 9, 1927, expressly directed a partition of the land owned jointly by Annie Booth and Frank Booth, and in the event it was found by a court of competent jurisdiction (a district court) that the land could not be equitably partitioned, so as to be fair and impartial to both and for the best interest of said Annie Booth’s estate, then the “guardian is authorized to sell” or to petition a “court of competent jurisdiction for authority and power to make such sale as the statute in such cases provides.” It will be seen from the order that the Probate Court never surrendered exclusive jurisdiction, if, in fact, it could do so, for the guardian of its appointment to seek authority and power from a district court to make such sale; and there is no statute that empowers a district court, on petition of a guardian, to direct the guardian to make sale of the ward’s real estate. Such authority is vested exclusively in the probate court in which said guardianship is pending, and the guardian’s acts in regard to the sale of the ward’s real estate are expressly directed by statute.
Assuming without deciding that a district court may partition land in general, in which a minor or an insane person has an interest; and direct a sale of a ward’s interest through a receiver, outside the purview of the statute relating to sales through the probate court, such power cannot extend to oust a probate court, exercising jurisdiction over an estate, of its function in directing the sale of real estate by a guardian and protecting a ward’s interest by a bond.
The Legislature has seen fit to enact special statutes affecting the sale of real estate belonging to minors and insane persons through the probate court, which may not be surrendered to a court having general jurisdiction — special statutes having precedence over general statutes.
We think, in this case, the Probate Court had exclusive jurisdiction over the sale of the land belonging to Annie Booth, and the statutes on the subject not having been followed, the sale through the district court was void.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled. •