Court Opinion

ID: 9831670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:16:38.176421+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:36.862399
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In our original opinion we did not consider the issue raised by appellant J. B. Cowden on the theory that he filed no answer in the lower court. It has been made to appear that Cowden did file an answer in the court below and we shall consider the question raised by his appeal.
J. B. Cowden claims a one-half undivided interest to the fee in the land in controversy by virtue of a quitclaim deed dated December 3, 1932, from Ellen Todd Wantland and her husband, C. E. Want-land, to him, Covering the land in controversy in this suit. The record discloses that Ellen Todd Wantland is the same person as Ellen Todd- On January 19, 1903, Ellen Todd and her sister, Mary English, sole surviving heirs of J. R. Edwards, conveyed a tract of land, of which the land in controversy is a part, to John O’Byrne. At the time of making this conveyance to O’Byrne, Ellen Todd was a married woman' and was not joined therein by her husband. It is the contention of plaintiff in error Cowden that this conveyance noted last above to O’Byrne was ineffective to pass the title of Ellen Todd to the land in controversy and that he became the owner of an undivided one-half interest therein by virtue of the quitclaim deed to him from Ellen Todd Wantland'and husband, C. E. Want-land, of date December 3, 1932. The question of the nature of the property conveyed by the deed from Ellen Todd and her sister, Mary English, to O’Byrne in 1903, and the effect of said conveyance, was passed upon by this court in the case of Wantland v. Cow-den, 87 S.W.2d S29, writ dismissed, wherein Judge Sellers, speaking for this court, said (page 533) : “If we are correct in the conclusion above reached, it follows that there was no valid location of this certificate after 1871, when the first location was rendered null and void, before the conveyance of the certificate by appellant Mrs. Wantland to O’Byrne. And for that reason' the certificate on that date must be treated as personal property and not subject to the statutes with reference to. the conveyance of the wife’s separate real estate. Since appellants’ claim of title to the land is predi•cated entirely upon the theory that such certificate on the date of the conveyance to O’Byrne was to be treated as realty, they must be denied a recovery in this case.”
We regard this opinion as sound and as constituting the law of this case so far as the rights of plaintiff in error Cowden are concerned.
The judgment of the lower court will be affirmed in so far as same affects J. B. . Cowden.
Defendants in error in their motion for a rehearing, among other contentions, state that our opinion handed down on March 17, 1938, divests out of them their one-eighth royalty interest in an undivided 2%o of the land in controversy. It was not our intention to do so. This suit being one in which the leasehold to the 2%o interest alone (except as to J. -B. Cowden) was involved, we leave undisturbed the interest of the.parties to the one-eighth royalty in said tract of land.
It is also contended that our opinion left as a charge against defendants in error the sum of $16,767, found by the trial court to be the value of the improvements made in good faith placed on said land by plaintiffs in error. We do not think the original opin*836ion is subject to this criticism, but, to avoid any misunderstanding with respect to this item, we state that the judgment of the trial court relating to this charge is also reversed and held for naught.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.