Court Opinion

ID: 9833013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:22:26.163085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:57.691847
License: Public Domain

On Appellant’s Motion for Rehearing.
In a motion for rehearing filed by appellant, complaint is made of the following paragraph of our original opinion:
“The record discloses that the proceeds from the sale of the rice, which, under the agreement, is the sole subject-matter in dispute, is insufficient to pay the amount round due the intervener and the amount adjudged plaintiff for rent. This being so, the error of the court, in adjudging plaintiff a lien for supplies and advances, which we have hereinbefore discussed and pointed out, becomes immaterial and will not authorize a reversal of the judgment.”
We find from a moré careful examination of the record that this complaint is well. *564founded. We were misled by the calculation contained in the brief of appellees of the amount due the intervener and the amount due the plaintiffs for rents at the date of the judgment. The accuracy of this calculation was not challenged by appellant, and we assumed it to be correct without making further examination of the record.
The trial court found that the amount due the intervener on the notes upon which its suit was brought amounted, at the date of the judgment, to the sum of $6,160.95, and that the sum 'due plaintiffs for rent of the land and for advances for the year 1920 was $4,482.95, and rendered judgment in favor of intervener and plaintiffs, respectively, for said amounts, with interest thereon from the date of judgment, and foreclosure of liens upon the crop, the proceeds of which is the subject-matter of this suit.
The findings of fact filed by the trial court show that for the year 1920 the defendants Dudleys and Stahl cultivated 818.7 acres of plaintiffs’ land, for which they agreed to pay $5 per acre, and that this rent was payable on October 1, 1920. This is the' rent included in the $4,482.95 item above stated for which the lien in favor of plaintiffs was foreclosed.
The findings and judgment- of the trial court fixing and adjudging the respective amounts due the plaintiffs and the intervener is not complained of by either of said appel-lees, nor by the appellant, and is conclusively binding upon this court.
It is further found by the trial court that the proceeds of the crop, which was held by the agreed custodian for distribution between the parties as their respective liens might be established and foreclosed, amounted to the sum of $8,192.82.
From this statement of the findings and judgment it is shown that after adjudging I that the intervener be paid out of said fund the sum of $6,160.95 and the plaintiffs the amount of rents due them for the year 1920 for 318.7 acres of land at $5 per acre (which amounts to the sum of $1,593.50), with interest thereon at 6 per cent, from October 1, 1920, to the date of the judgment, there remains a balance in said fund of $283.31 which should be adjudged to appellant.
This being the state of the record, our former judgment affirming the judgment of the trial court in its entirety must be set aside, and upon the conclusions of law expressed in our former opinion that portion of the judgment giving plaintiffs a lien on the rice crop for the advances and supplies furnished the defendants Dudley and Stahl will be' reversed, and judgment here rendered in favor of appellant for the amount of the proceeds of said crop in the hands of the custodian of said fund at the time judgment was rendered in the court below remaining after allowing the intervener the sum of $6,160.95 and the plaintiffs the sum of $1,592.50, with interest thereon from October 1, 1920, to June 3, 1922, the date of the judgment below. ,
From the findings of the trial court before set out as to the amount of the fund in the hands of the custodian at the date of the judgment, the sum which the appellant was entitled to receive out of the fund would be $283.31, as above stated.
It is stated in the motion that in addition to the sum of $8,192.82 found by the trial court to be the amount in /the hands of the custodian, there was interest due on said amount by the custodian which' should be added thereto. If this be true, appellant would have been entitled to all of the accrued interest in the fund at the date of the judgment below. But, as before said, there being no complaint against the findings of th,e trial court, we are bound thereby and can only render judgment in favor of appellant for the sum of $283.31 of said fund. Ány interest that may have accumulated on said fund since the date of judgment below should be apportioned between the owners of the fund as above adjudicated. In all other respects the judgment will be affirmed.
The very forceful motion for rehearing calls our attention to another statement in our original opinion which we think is incorrect and should be withdrawn. In discussing the case of Watson v. Paddleford, 110 Tex. 525, 221 S. W. 569, we said in our former opinion:
“Had the mortgage in that case, as in this, covered the entire crop raised on the place, it would not, we think, have been held insufficient.”
A more careful' consideration of the opinion in the case cited shows that the holding that the mortgage under consideration in that ease was invalid was not based upon the uncertainty in the description of the bales of cotton intended to be mortgaged, but upon the broader principle that the mortgage described no property in actual or potential existence at the time the mortgage was executed. The basis of that decision is found in the following quotation from the opinion of Judge ’Brown in the case of McDavid v. Phillips, 100 Tex. 73, 94 S. W. 1131.
“The terms of this mortgage did.not point out anything which the parties to it could at that time know to be the subject of that contract, nor was the crop which is sought to be subjected to the mortgage here the product of anything which was at the time of the making of the mortgage capable of being identified and in which the mortgagor had an interest.”
This cannot be said of the mortgage under which interveners claim in this caso. As stated in our former opinion, at the time this mortgage was executed the mortgagors were in possession of the 318.7 acres of land leased! by them from the plaintiffs for the year 1920 and were cultivating or planting thereon *565the rice crop which interveners are claiming was covered by the mortgage. This was the only crop shown to have been cultivated by plaintiff on lan'd in Brazoria county during the year mentioned. Such being the facts, it certainly cannot be said that the mortgage ctfd not point out as the subject of the contract property having a potential existence, in which the mortgagors had an interest, and known and capable of being certainly identified by the parties.
It seems clear to us that as to the crop raised on the 318.7 acres of land during the year 1920 the description contained in the mortgage is sufficient. The fact that the mortgage includes other property not sufficiently described cannot offset its validity as to the property sufficiently described.
The mortgage being valid and binding as between the parties, and the description of the property contained therein being sufficient to put third persons on inquiry, which, if pursued with reasonable diligence, would have enabled them to identify the property with certainty, we feel constrained to adhere to our original opinion that the trial court correctly held that the record of this mortgage charged appellant iwith notice at the time it took its mortgage from the plaintiffs that the crop in question was covered by the mortgage held by the interveners, and .appellant’s mortgage is therefore subordinate to that of the interveners.
We think the following authorities sustain these conclusions: Richardson v. Washington, 88 Tex. 339, 31 S. W. 614; Perkins v. Alexander (Tex. Civ. App.) 209 S. W. 790; Ross v. Schultz (Tex. Civ. App.) 198 S. W. 672; Johnson v. Brown (Tex. Civ. App.) 65 S. W. 485; Harless v. Jester (Tex. Civ. App.) 97 S. W. 138; Conely v. Dimmitt County State Bank (Tex. Civ. App.) 181 S. W. 272.
The motion for rehearing having been granted, our former judgment will be set aside, and a judgment entered as above indicated.