Court Opinion

ID: 9832593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:01:35.387533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:48.658243
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In our original opinion it is stated that none of the cases cited in the brief of appellants, to support their contention that the deed from the tax collector to S. A. Miller was insufficient as a basis for prescription under the five-years statute of limitation, are based upon a deed in which there is a full description of the land by metes and bounds, as in the Miller deed, and this, is true. However, in their motion for rehearing they cité the case of McDonald v. Hamblen, 78 Tex. 628, 14 S. W. 1042, in which the land sued for was described as a part of the George A. Campbell survey. It was, in fact, *428part of a tract patented to De Cordova, as-signee of Campbell. The tax deed described the land as a part of the R. A. Campbell survey, giving also metes and bounds. No objection was made to the description of the survey by giving the name of the original grantee of the certificate, but the objection was that the name of the survey was given as the R. A. Campbell instead of the George A. Campbell survey. In the opinion the survey is spoken of as the George A. Campbell survey. This appears to sustain our opinion on the point that the description of the land in the tax deed in the present case as the east half of a survey in the name of George L. Short, the original grantee in the certificate, was sufficient, as far as that part of the description is concerned. The tax deed in the present case further gives the correct abstract number, omits the number of the patent (which it was unnecessary to give) and gives a wrong certificate number. We quote so much of the opinion in the case cited as bears upon the question here presented: “In support of the plea of five-years limitation the defendants offered in evidence a tax deed by John P. Cox, tax collector of Hill county, to W. H. McDonald to 984 acres of land of the R. A. Campbell survey, and describing the land by metes and bounds. In connection with this deed it appears that the county map of Hill county was offered to ‘show the locality of the George A. Campbell survey and surrounding surveys.’ The deed was dated June 4, 1878, and duly registered on the 2d day of April, 1879. The petition was filed May 3, 1886. The plaintiff objected to its introduction, ‘first, because it was void on its face, no authority appearing for the execution of the deed; second, because it does not support the plea of limitation, as the description fails to identify the land and is not sufficient to apprise the owner of the land of an invasion thereof by the grantee in the tax deed.’ The court sustained the second objection and excluded the deed and the map. This is assigned as error. The assignment is not well made. The deed shows on its face that the tract of land against which the assessment was made, and which was sold to pay said assessment, was a different tract of land from that sued for. The deed recites that the land assessed was 984 acres of the R. A. Campbell survey, and the land which the field notes described as conveyed is a part of the said Campbell survey. The land sued for is a part of the George A. Campbell one-third league.”
It is not contended that the fact that it was not shown that the prerequisites of the statute were not complied with by the tax collector would be a valid objection to the deed as a basis of prescription under the five-years statute. Schleicher v. Gatlin, 85 Tex. 270, 20 S. W. 120. One of the conditions for the acquisition of title under the statute is that the party setting up such title must have been in adverse possession for that length of time, “claiming under a deed or deeds duly registered.” It is not necessary that the deed convey good title (Hunton v. Nichols, 55 Tex. 217), but the deed must describe the land with sufficient certainty to identify it. Murphy v. Welder, 58 Tex. 235. A description of land in a deed otherwise identifying it is not vitiated by a mistake in giving the number of the certificate. Stout v. Taul, 71 Tex. 438, 9 S. W. 329.
Appellant insists that the ease of Arambula v. Sullivan, 80 Tex. 619, 16 S. W. 43, cited by us, has no analogy to the present case. It was cited merely in support of the general and well-settled rule in the construction of deeds that “where by rejection of a false and impossible part of a description which is repugnant to the general intention of the instrument a perfect description will remain, the false part should be rejected and effect given to the deed.” 13 Cyc. 630. The general principle is thus stated in Smith v. Chatham, 14 Tex. 328: “Counsel do not differ as to the law applicable to this question ; but only as to its application. It is ingeniously, and very justly, admitted by counsel for the appellee, that ‘there are numerous cases in which it has been decided, that, where the body of the land is sufficiently described to identify it beyond doubt, and control, with sufficient certainty, erroneous particular descriptions, the latter may be rejected, to give effect to the former and uphold the deed.’ Such unquestionably is the well-settled law; and. such, we think, is this case. The description identified, beyond doubt, the land actually conveyed to the plaintiff by the sheriff’s deed; and the court therefore erred in excluding the evidence.”
The deed referred to was a sheriff’s deed. See, also, West v. Houston Oil Co., 46 Tex. Civ. App. 102, 102 S. W. 927; Pinckney v. Young, 107 S. W. 622.
Under these well-settled principles we think it requires no further citation of authority to show that the tax deed was, on its face, a sufficient conveyance of the land claimed by appellants to constitute it, when duly recorded, a “registered deed” to this land.
Appellants’ main contention is that the registration of the deed was insufficient to give appellants notice that their possession was invaded under this deed. We do not understand by what course of legal reasoning it can be successfully contended that the registration of a deed, which on its face conveyed by definite and accurate description the land of appellants, when accompanied with actual possession and payment of taxes, was not such notice to them as they were entitled to under the statute, whether it be a tax deed or one voluntarily made by the grantor. If this deed, describing the land exactly as it is described, had been by a stranger to the title, who had not title, to appellee, and had been duly registered, we think it would hardly be contended that it would not have af*429forded a basis for prescription under tbe statute of limitation of five years, on tbe ground that tbe registration did not afford notice to tbe owner. Tbe tax deed in tbis case, by field notes giving tbe metes and bounds, definitely and accurately described a tract of land wbicb is, in fact, tbe east balf of tbe 640 acres patented to Elias Griswold, assignee of George L. Short, and, under well-settled rules of construction of deeds, was, on its face, and not by reference to anything extrinsic of tbe contents of tbe deed, as stated in Brokel v. McKechnie, 69 Tex. 32, 6 S. W. 623, a deed to tbe land claimed by appellants. It was duly registered and we think satisfied tbis condition of the statute. Appellants have urged their contention of tbis point with so much earnestness that we have thought proper to state our views more fully.