Court Opinion

ID: 9830499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:15:07.10067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:25:24.775169
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The motion for rehearing of appellee as well as the entire record, together with his original brief and motion for rehearing, has again been very fully considered by each member of this court. It will be remembered that this case was argued very fully orally and ably by both appellants’ and ap-pellee’s attorneys, and we thereafter gave appellee ample time in which to file a reply brief, which he did, and, after considering the case in connection with the briefs of both parties, with much doubt, we wrote an opinion affirming the judgment of the lower court.
Upon considering appellant’s motion for a rehearing, and not being satisfied with our judgment in the first instance, we withdrew that opinion and reversed and remanded the case. Appellee had ample time in which to answer appellant’s motion, but did not, as appellant has not answered this one.
We fail to see any good reason for appel-lee’s criticism on the ground of lack of time .to present his side of the case. In fact, it was ably presented by appellee’s counsel, as shown in the first instance, because we took his view of the testimony and affirmed the judgment. Even now we fail to see how much harm can result from a retrial of' this case by simplifying the pleading and permitting all the legitimate evidence to go in. It will at last always depend very largely upon the unsatisfactory testimony of Oox, a very old man, but we think the testimony offered in connection with the evidence to show the mistake of Cox was a reasonable request.
 The statement alleged to have been made by the trial court is set out in the motion for a new trial addressed to the trial, court’s discretion, which seems not to have been challenged nor when the court was considering the motion denied by the court. There was ample diligence shown as well as the materiality of the testimony offered.
The judgment of the trial court adjudges to the appellee first a specific recovery for 9,694.5 acres in Cameron county, Tex., out of the La Feria grant, following the broad description of the land contained in ap-pellee’s petition. After this broad and voluminous description by field notes and reference to certain deeds for description and identification, the judgment attempts to fix the boundary line between the parties in the following language:
“And also included in said field notes and boundaries of said 9,694.5 acres of land are all the lands claimed and sued for and described in the joint first amended original answer, filed herein on January 21, 1924, by each and all of the defendants hereinbefore named, except as to a comparatively small portion thereof which lies north of the north line of said 9,694.5 acres, and as to said portion of said lands so claimed by said defendants and lying north of the north line of said -9,694.5 acres of land, so claimed by defendants or any one or more of them, plaintiff has at no time claimed or asserted title, and said portion of the lands so claimed by said defendants and lying north of the north line of said 9,694.5 acres of land were and are not in controversy in this suit.
“As to all the lands claimed by any one or all of the defendants, and which lie west of the western boundary line of said 9,694.5 acres of land as herein located, plaintiff will take nothing, as said west line of said 9,694.5 acres of land as described above is hereby adjudicated and established as being the eastern boundary line of all those portions of- lands owned by each and all of said defendants, which lie south of said post herein established as being the north*1097west corner of the lands owned by the plaintiff, W. T., Adams.
“It is therefore the further order, judgment, and decree o^f this court that all right, title, claim, and interest in and to any of said 9,694.5 acres of land as hereinbefore bounded and described, heretofore asserted by said defendants or any one or more of them, are hereby canceled and held for naught, and all of same are hereby divested out of said defendants and each and all of them and vested in the plaintiff W. T. Adams, and all cloud on the title to all of said 9,694.5 acres of land in said W. T. Adams as herein bounded and described, and which could have arisen in any way from any claim heretofore asserted by said defendants or any one or more of them is hereby fully removed.”
Eor a sheriff with a writ to locate and seize the land to the' boundary line it would require him to make a survey of the whole tract by an engineer to determine the boundary line lying north of the north line of the 9,694.5 acres and the west line thereof, which is established as being the eastern boundary line of appellant’s lands which lie south of a post established as being the northwest corner of the land owned by appellee. The identical boundary line should be described in the pleading. Provident Nat. Bank v. Webb, 60 Tex. Civ. App. 321, 128 S. W. 426. It is held in Wilhelm v. Bauman, 63 Tex. Civ. App. 146, 133 S. W. 293:
“The purpose of a boundary suit is to fix and determine the boundary line in controversy, so that an officer charged with the duty of executing a writ of possession can go upon the ground and, without exercising judicial functions, ascertain the locality of the line fixed by the judgment; and, if the judgment does not accomplish that result, it is of no avail, and should be set aside on appeal. Edwards v. Smith, 71 Tex. 161, 9 S. W. 77; Jopes v. Andrews, 72 Tex. 17, 9 S. W. 170; Reed v. Cavett, 1 Tex. Civ. App. 156, 20 S. W. 837; Provident Nat. Bank v. Webb, 128 S. W. 426. The case last cited was differentiated by this court from the other cases cited; but, in the course of the opinion, Mr. Justice Jenkins correctly stated the rule applicable to this class of cases in the following language: ‘In a boundary suit brought in form of trespass to try title, where there is a general verdict for the plaintiff, if the plaintiff has not in his petition described the boundary so that it can be identified by objects found on the ground, a judgment following the verdict is void, for the reason that it cannot be executed without the officer attempting to execute the same assuming judicial functions and determining the location of such boundary; and such a judgment would not sustain a plea of res adju-dieata in a subsequent suit between the same parties involving the same subject-matter.’ ”
It will be observed from reading the pleading of both parties that the acreage of the lands sued for are not set out as such within the description of the entire pleading or within the alleged boundary line. What in acreage does appellee claim that appellant is in possession of? What specific land is sued for as contained within his alleged disputed boundary line upon which appellant asserts his claim? From' what specific described lands within the boundary would appellant be dispossessed by any writ?
But for the error of the court in not granting a new trial, notwithstanding the pleadings and judgment, the case could be affirmed. However, we believe for the reasons given by us the judgment should be reversed for another trial, and, so believing that justice has not been administered, appellee’s motion for a rehearing'is overruled.