Court Opinion

ID: 9643620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:35:51.184808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:01.962658
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
We agree with appellant that a cause of action for breach of a covenant of general warranty does not arise until there has been an eviction and that a constructive eviction will suffice. Schneider v. Lipscomb County Nat. Farm Loan Ass’n, 146 Tex. 66, 202 S.W.2d 832, 172 A.L.R. 1. We disagree with appellant as to when the eviction occurred. Her contentions are that the eviction did not occur until she demanded recognition of her title in 1949. •
It is our view that eviction occurred in 1919 when the' royalty deed under which, appellant claims was executed, this for the reason that at such time the true owner was in possession.
The applicable law is well stated in 12 Tex.Jur. pp. 42-43, as follows:
“But the rule requiring eviction presupposes, it. seems, possession by the vendee or warrantee. If the vendee has not taken possession at the time o-f *913the conveyance, but finds the premises already in the possession of one claiming under a paramount title, the covenant of warranty is breached, and the vendee may maintain an action; possession of the holder of the superior title is treated as an assertion thereof, and the law will not compel the grantee to commit a trespass on the land in order to enable him to bring an action on the warranty.”
Appellant would escape the effect of this settled law by relying upon the equally well established rule that “After the severance of the surface and mineral estate, the possession of the one will not ripen into a limitation title of the other,”1 appellant saying in this regard that “For this reason [she] could not have been put upon notice before 1949 that the possession of R.. P. Snider and the Seymour heirs was an assertion by them of superior title.”
This reasoning fails however because there never was a severance of the surface and mineral estates. “Only an effective deed will operate to sever the mineral estate from the surface estate.” Thomas v. Southwestern Settlement & Development Company, 132 Tex. p. 413, 123 S.W.2d 290, 300.
The royalty deed in issue was not an effective deed because the grantors therein had no title.
It follows that possession of the surface by the true owner in 1919 was possession also of the mineral estate thereunder. Broughton v. Humble Oil and Refining Co., Tex.Civ.App., El Paso, 105 S.W.2d 480 writ ref.; Vol. 31-A, Tex.Jur. p. 43. Thus the eviction occurred in 1919, at which time the cause of action for breach of warranty arose.
Our ruling upon the question of limitations eliminates the necessity of passing upon any other question presented.
The motion is overruled.
Motion overruled.

. Vol. 31-A, Tex.Jur. p. 43.