Court Opinion

ID: 9829789
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:37:45.388252+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:06.433043
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
Originally we affirmed this case, and thereafter overruled the motion for rehearing. On April 29, 1942, the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Sayers v. Pyland, 139 Tex. 57, 161 S.W.2d 769, 140 A.L.R. 1164, was delivered.
Being of the opinion that what was said in the original opinion and in the opinion overruling the motion for rehearing was in conflict with that case, on our own motion, the order overruling the motion for a rehearing was set aside. We shall not withdraw the original opinion, for the reason that the facts involved determinative of the appeal are therein stated.
The case of Sayers v. Pyland, supra, was pending before the Supreme Court at the time our original opinion was handed down. In that case it was held, we think, where an undivided interest in land is dedicated by occupancy as a homestead, the homestead is held subject to the right of partition by the other cotenants. The husband and wife, .the homestead being an undivided interest in land, have the power in effecting an agreed partition thereof, to subject the land awarded to them to an incumbrance to the end that the land be equitably partitioned.
It is elementary that a husband, or a husband joined by his wife, may give a valid incumbrance to adjust a purchase-money lien.
After a careful reconsideration of the matter, we can see no inherent distinction between the adjustment of a purchase-money lien and the adjustment of the equity of a cotenant as to partition. In a judicial partition, the existence of the homestead in kind may be threatened. If the land be not susceptible of partition in kind, an involuntary sale may be ordered. In case there be a partition in kind, owelty may be adjudged to achieve a fair and equitable partition.
*666A holding that in order to protect a homestead subject to partition that the husband or husband and wife have power to give a valid lien, tends, perhaps, to preserve and protect the right of homestead.
In any and all events, we think the case of Sayers v. Pyland is conclusive against the appellee here.
It is ordered that the judgment of the trial court be affirmed as to the thirteen-fourteenths interest in the land in controversy and reversed and here rendered in favor of appellant against appellee, Mary Nauert, joined pro forma by her husband, as to the one-fourteenth interest.