Court Opinion

ID: 9827853
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:53:35.270569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:37.932673
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[11] 1. Appellants complain of our overruling their assignment with reference to the recovery of rents. The evidence in this case would have sustained a finding of a rental value of 10 cents per acre per annum. The amount found by the jury ($6,000) was only 6y2 cents per acre per annum on 5,857 acres recovered by the state in the trial court. The state was entitled to recover about 9,000 acres, the rental value of which, at 6% cents per acre per annum, would have amounted to $9,896.25 for the 16 years and 11 months for which the state was entitled to recover. The evidence of appellant A. O. Hamilton shows that appellants collected rent from Mrs. Carr at three cents per acre for seven or eight years. Putting this at eight years, which his testimony would justify, it amounts to $1,405.-68 on 5,857 acres. His testimony also shows that appellants collected rent from Moore for three or four years at ten cents. Putting this at four years at that price shows that they collected $2,342.80 on the 5,857 acres, or a total of $3,748.48, which, deducted from the $6,000 found by the jury, leaves $2,251.52 for the remaining 4 years and 11 months, or about 7/io cents per acre per annum. When if is recollected that appellants collected rents from Mrs. Carr and from Moore on the entire 9,000 acres, it will be seen that the evidence amply supports the finding of the jury for $6,000 rents.
[12] 2. Appellants complain of this court’s not sustaining their assignment of error as to the purported ancient map of Palafox excluded by the trial court. Had this map been admitted, it would have in no wise aided in locating any of the porciones which appellants claimed covered or conflicted with the land in controversy.
[13] 3. Appellants assign as error the preliminary statement made by the court in its charge to the jury. The court is not required to make any preliminary statement in any case, and it is not contended that the statement made contains any affirmative error.
[14] 4. Appellants assign as error the charge of the court wherein the jury were instructed that they should decide- all issues according to the preponderance of evidence. If a jury is not to decide an issue according to the preponderance of evidence, how should it decide it?
[15] 5. Appellants complain of the action of the attorneys for appellee in affixing to their brief a map, for the reason that this map was not introduced in evidence, and was not testified to by anybody as being correct. Ap-pellee’s attorneys did not claim that this map was introduced in evidence, but was made by them as illustrative of their contentions. The court did not adopt this map as having been introduced in evidence, but made one of its own from the evidence in the case.
[16] 6. Appellants in their motion for rehearing refer to the testimony of one Salinas to show that there is a crossing on the Rio Grande known as the Laredo crossing. This witness’ information as to this crossing extended back only to 1884, or about 72 years after appellants claim the Enriquez grant was made, and he says that this crossing is at the town of Palafox. It is not to be íme-sumed that the officials of the town of Pala-fox granted to Enriquez land covering a portion of said town, as they would have had no authority to grant him any land within said town or its ejidos. If the Enriquez grant extended from the crossing on the Rio Grande in the town of Palafox to Apache Hill, it would have had a front on the Rio Grande of about 6 leagues; and if extended back six leagues, as claimed by appellants, this would have been a grant of 36 leagues. Enriquez in his petition says that he prays for a grant of a small tract of land known as Baleoncitas.
[17] 7. Appellants insist in their motion for rehearing, as they did in their original *1125brief, that the recitals in the Powers judgment show that the land sued for was titled under the Spanish government, and therefore did not belong to the state of Texas. The Powers judgment was a suit by one Buggies against the state, wherein he sought to recover the rear portion of the original Galan grant. The recitals in this judgment are that this tract of land, described as in the opinion herein, was granted to Galan, but that the Spanish government disappropriated the front portion thereof, extending bach six leagues from the river for the purpose of establishing the town of Palafox. These recitals were material to the issues in that case, Buggies having shown that he was the owner of that portion of the Galan tract not dis-appropriated by the Spanish government; but the additional recitals in said judgment that the Spanish government “gave and donated the lands above and below the town to the' settlers of-the same in the form or shape of porciones running back a depth of six Mexican leagues, or 30,000 varas,” were not material to any issue in that case, and are not sufficient to show that said land was granted to the settlers of said town. We judicially know that the lots in the town were granted to ,the inhabitants of said town in severalty, and that the ejidos or commons of the town were granted to such inhabitants in common; but we also know that the other lands within the jurisdiction of Spanish towns, were not granted in common to the settlers of the town,, but, upon proper proof,, particular porciones or portions of said land were granted in severalty to such inhabitants. It devolved upon the appellants in this case (the state having made a prima facie case) to show that the lands within the jurisdiction of the town of Palafox were granted to particular inhabitants, and also to show the location of such porciones. If they were not so granted, they remained the property of the Spanish government, and became the property of Texas, as the successor of said government. However, there is a further recital in said Powers or Buggies judgment which -indicates that only a portion of the lands within the jurisdiction of the town of Palafox may have been granted to settlers of said town, and does not indicate the location of such porciones. The part of said judgment here referred to, after stating that the jurisdiction of Palafox extended five leagues above and five leagues below, the plaza of said town is as follows: “Which, or a part of the same, were granted in porciones to the settlers.” This does not indicate what part; and, as before stated, the burden was on appellants to show that such grants were made to land covering the land in controversy, or a part thereof.
For the reasons herein stated, the motion for rehearing is overruled.
Motion overruled.