Court Opinion

ID: 9833758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:00:06.957719+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:06.503312
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
The language of article 3354 is broad enough to cover every detention or conversion of personal property, and it has been held by the Supreme Court of Texas that “there is no exception in it, as to the circumstances under which the possession was acquired. The only essential ingredient is that it is adverse to the title sued on. And if it is adverse, it would be defeating the intent of the statute, to permit an inquiry into the legality of its origin. If that possession has been adverse for two years preceding the commencement of the suit, it is a bar.” Thomas v. Greer, 6 Texas, 372; McDonald v. McGuire, 8 Texas, 361; Winburn v. Cochran, 9 Texas, 123. We have not gone to that extent in the opinion in this case.
In the case of Munson v. Hallowell, 26 Texas, 475, the principles of law applicable to cases of this character are thoroughly discussed and the opinion of this court fully sustained. See also Huntsman v. Jarvin, 17 Texas, 161.
In the case of Hull v. Davidson, 6 Texas Civil Appeals, 588, it was said: “The charge of the court, as we read it, was so framed as to instruct the jury, in effect, that if the mare in the first instance was stolen, the defendant’s plea of limitation, or his title dependent thereon, was tainted, though he and his vendors had held the animal in good faith for a period of more than two years before the bringing of the suit. This instruction we hold to be erroneous.”
It follows, if the mare was stolen, that the absence of guilty knowledge on the part of appellant and his vendor made them purchasers in good faith, and if they knew nothing of the theft there could have been no fraudulent concealment of plaintiff’s cause of action by either of them. And in fact there was no concealment, but the animal was used openly under the very eyes of appellant without any attempt to disguise her in any manner.
The motion is overruled.

Overruled.