Court Opinion

ID: 9672864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:01:56.101013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:17.677067
License: Public Domain

STEPHENSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The language in the instrument which is the subject matter of this litigation, prepared by laymen, does not within itself or by reference to some other existing writing, furnish the means or the data by which the land can be identified with reasonable certainty. Broaddus v. Grout, supra. The parties just did not have a “meeting of the minds” as to the particular tract of land they intended to buy or sell.
The description in this earnest money contract contains two indefinite elements which make it impossible to arrive at a description of one particular tract of land. If the description had specified one acre of land with a frontage of not less than 150 feet, with the other elements in the description, we would have been furnished the data, or nucleus necessary to arrive at a particular tract of land. But, our description says one acre, “more or less,” and neither the parties nor the trial court construed it to mean “one acre.” In fact, the surveyor, Hall, and the trial court found the tract of land to contain 0.9 of an acre. On the other hand if our description had called for precisely 150-foot frontage and one acre, more or less, the intention of the parties would have been clear and the information would have been furnished to reasonably describe the land intended to be covered. But this description called for “not less than” 150 feet and neither this court nor the trial court has the right to interpolate or eliminate terms of material legal consequence in order to uphold a contract which is void because of an uncertain legal description. Dahlberg v. Holden, 150 Tex. 179, 238 S.W.2d 699 (1951). The terms “150 feet” and “not less than” 150 feet do not have the same meaning and th,e majority opinion has no legal authority to so construe them.
This is not an action brought by one of the parties to reform this contract because of fraud or mutual mistake, and it is not contended the description is ambiguous and that parol evidence is admissible to show the intent of the parties. Also, this is not a case in which extrinsic evidence could be used to complete the description. As it is said in Grass v. Cummins, 329 S.W.2d 496 (El Paso, Tex.Civ.App., 1959, error ref. n. r.e.) :
“In other words, the function of parol evidence is to explain what is actually thére, and not to supply that which is lacking.”
As a matter of fact, if the majority opinion could be construed to mean that parol evidence was admissible on this case, all of the evidence in this record shows that the uncertainties mentioned above [one acre, “more or less” and “not less than” 150 feet] were not resolved in the oral negotiations of the parties, and that the written description merely recorded that which had been actually said by the parties. Apparently these parties did not realize until later, that they had not agreed upon a particular tract of land to be bought or sold.
*878If it is the intention of the concurring opinion to decide this case on the basis of equitable selection, then this is the first mention of that doctrine in this case. No contention was made by plaintiff in his pleadings or evidence in the trial court, and no contention is made in this court that recovery could be made on that basis. There is nothing in the instrument itself to indicate it was the intention of these parties to allow an unnamed surveyor to make a selection for them. I think the clear meaning of the words used in the contract “specifically identified” is that the survey- or should locate on the ground, the tract of land the parties had attempted to describe, using the information given in the contract. I find nothing in the instrument that a surveyor would be permitted to use his own discretion to select a tract of land for the parties. A careful reading of the statement of facts supports this conclusion, as there is a complete lack of evidence that any of the parties intended to endow a surveyor with such authority.
This case should be reversed and rendered.