Court Opinion

ID: 9829797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:38:03.345515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:06.571806
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
As stated in the original opinion, appellant was under no primary burden to show that Garza had title to the property in controversy. The burden was rather upon appellees to show that Garza had no assignable title, and until appellees made a prima facie case showing such lack of title, appellant was not required to take the initiative. Appel-lees did not meet this burden upon the trial. They directed all their energies towards showing that Garza did not produce to them the papers evidencing his title. Their duty was to go to the original sources, to the archives, to the appropriate registration offices, to the authorized custodians, and to obtain from them the evidences of the title in whomsoever that title rested. It is inconceivable that the records of the republic are wholly silent upon the matter of the title to this block of 40,000 acres of land, shown by the record here to consist of numerous separate tracts.
Appellees stood upon the contention that the only evidence of title obtained by them from Garza consisted of testimonios, which Garza said was all he had. It is shown in this connection that, just before the expiration of the time allowed by the government to appellees for the showing of title entitling them to the desired permit, appellees called upon Garza in his San Antonio residence and demanded his title papers; that Garza, had a search made among his papers there in his home, and, finding none, told them that the testimonios already in the possession of ap-pellees was “all he had.” It is quite obvious from the record that by this Garza meant that he had no other title papers among those in his home, and. that he did not mean that all the title hé had rested upon those testi-monios." That incident is without value in the determination .of the matter of title.
If upon another trial it is shown that at the time of the execution of the contracts in controversy the grantor had no such title in the estate sought to be conveyed by him in those contracts as to legally empower him to convey that estate, then it becomes a matter of course that the consideration paid him by appellees failed, and appellees are entitled to recover that consideration, as well as all other damages sustained by them as a proximate result of that failure.