Court Opinion

ID: 9833044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:23:48.84741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:58.392249
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In its motion for rehearing, appellant calls our attention to the following finding of fact which we have concluded, after a closer review of the witness’ evidence, was error on our part. In the original opinion, we found that the witness W. M. Black, in a survey of this land in 1907, “saw the bearing trees-called for in the original field notes at the Northwest corner which is at a point due-*716North from where he found the Southwest corner."
This finding was based on the evidence of the witness Black, who had testified that, on the purchase in 19OT of the 42½ acres of land whose boundaries are in dispute, he surveyed the land, and found the northeast and southeast corners from the hearing trees called for in its original survey, and that from the southeast corner he ran directly west 645 varas, where he stopped, and on search found one of the bearing trees called for in the original survey of the tract, and located the southwest corner at this point. He then testified: “I did not survey the North line of block 14 of the Nacogdoches County School land at this time, I did not run it. I did not run it the other time when I originally surveyed it. When I got to that corner there I just started the instruments down, looked down there a few steps and found two or three marked trees that I supposed was the first survey made and then went on down.”
We erroneously concluded that the “two or three marked trees” were on the northwest corner. After a closer review of this witness’ testimony, we have concluded that the witness referred to the marked trees standing at the southeast corner, and not to the marked trees standing at the northwest corner. The entire testimony of this witnesss is in confusion, due probably to the fact that he was testifying from a map before him, and, instead of designating points referred to, so that their locations would be intelligible in the record, merely used such expressions as “there,” “at that point,” etc. We therefore state, as a- finding of fact, that there were no bearing trees found by the witness Black where the northwest corner of the 42½-acre tract would be located. Its location must be determined by course and distance from the southwest corner. This correction does not affect the disposition made of this case.
It was our view, as expressed in our original opinion, that the true location of the southwest corner rested on disputed evidence, and that such location was clearly a jury issue. If the jury accepted, as it did in its findings, the location of such comer as found by the witness Black, and there being no natural objects then in existence locating the northwest corner, the course and distance called for in the original survey from the southwest corner necessarily located the northwest corner at a point in the north line of the 42½⅛01⅛ tract due north from this southwest corner.
We have carefully examined the other grounds of the motion for a new trial, with the result that we are of the opinion that the motion should be overruled, and it is so ordered.
Overruled,