Court Opinion

ID: 9766755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:57:53.994576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:25.715327
License: Public Domain

REAVLEY, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully suggest that the court has not presented this trial record to the advantage of the party whose contentions have been accepted by the trier of fact. More objectionable to me is the division of the claimant’s acts of appropriation of the land between fencing and grazing and weed clearing for separate consideration by which rules of law are applied to nullify the effect of each, even though the combined acts of appropriation justify the finding of visible assertion of ownership.
I agree with the opinion of the court of civil appeals and find evidence in the *145record legally sufficient to support the verdict of the jury.
L. A. Weinacht in 1940 purchased and took possession of the several thousand acre Meier ranch, which included Section 36 to the west and Section 40 to the north of the land in dispute. Weinacht regarded the disputed NW/4 of Section 39 as part of the Meier ranch. He understood that it was not included in his deeds; but he immediately began to claim this land, according to his testimony, and used it as he did the remainder of the ranch. In 1940 this NW/4 was fenced together with the SW/4 and a portion of the SE/4 making about 400 acres under the fence indicated in the plat reproduced in the court’s opinion. The fencing was changed in 1954 when the west and north fences shown on the plat were taken down to throw the disputed land into the same enclosure as the remainder of the Weinacht ranch.
The jury found, in answer to the customary inquiry, that Weinacht “had and held peaceable and adverse possession” of the land, “cultivating, using or enjoying the same” for a period of ten consecutive years or more prior to January 9, 1964 when this suit was instituted. Using the statutory language (Arts. 5514 and 5515, Vernon’s Anno.Tex. Civil Statutes), the court instructed the jury that “peaceable possession” means continuous possession and that “adverse possession” means “an actual and visible appropriation of the land, commenced and continued under a claim of right inconsistent with and hostile to the claim of another.”
This court says that Weinacht “guarded his claim carefully,” but almost ten years prior to the filing of the suit he removed the fences from E to A and from E to F and then built a new fence from D to B. These modifications were plainly designed to include this disputed land in the Wein-acht pasture.
The court says that Weinacht’s “kinsman * * * never heard Weinacht or any of his family make claim to any part of the NW/4.” This kinsman (whose wife had a brother who married Weinacht’s sister) also testified that he supposed Weinacht owned this land and that he regarded the fence from A to D as the East fence of the Weinacht Ranch.
There is evidence which tends to disprove the adverse claim. There is the failure to render this land for taxes, and there is the letter written by Weinacht in 1952. It should be added that in 1958 Weinacht leased the SW/4 from one of the addressees of the 1952 letter and that no connection is suggested between those addressees and the ownership of the disputed NW/4. The weight to be given this evidence was for the jury to determine.
I will briefly summarize the evidence supporting limitation title during the years from 1940 to 1954. The Weinachts testified that when they first took possession of the 400 acres, in addition to rebuilding the fences along the lines described in their deeds (E to F and E to A), they rebuilt the south fence (F to G) as “a real fence” after finding it practically down. The fence on the east (A to D to G) was repaired with new posts and new wire, and a fourth wire was added to it. I can find no justification for the statement by the majority that the fence from A to D included “a strip off the west side of the NE/4” within the 400 acre enclosure. When the witness Don Weinacht stood at the exhibit, he marked x’s for the fence slightly off the property line between the NW/4 and the NE/4, but testimony put this fence on that line and all attorneys assumed throughout the trial that the fence was at the boundary.
From 1940 forward these fences matched all Weinacht Ranch fences and were strong four-wire fences with posts 30 feet apart and with three stays between the posts. The Weinacht procedure was to check the ranch fences continuously, which brought them to check each point of the fence at least once every three months.
Under Weinacht testimony cattle and horses were grazed within the 400 acre en*146closure and on the disputed tract at all times from 1940 to 1954. The animals were watered at a water lot adjoining the southwest corner of the 400 acres. An observer would see the water lot as evidence that the 400 acre enclosure was being used as a steady ranch operation; he would hardly conclude that cattle strayed abroad from their habitat in a small water lot. A road or pickup trail went onto the disputed tract from the Weinacht fee land, the road being used by them to work the cattle pastured on the disputed tract.
The Weinachts testified that the disputed land was kept clean of inkweed and cockleburrs during all of these years, which required that the land be chopped by hoe every year. They said that the result of this cleaning could be seen by observing the land.
The majority correctly say that the cutting of weeds is not such use of the land as to meet the requirements of adverse possession, but the statement assumes no other use of the land. When added to continuous grazing of the land, the weed cleaning is significant evidence of visible appropriation. Caver v. Liverman, 143 Tex. 359, 185 S.W.2d 417 (1945); Hoppe v. Sauter, 416 S.W.2d 912 (Tex.Civ.App. 1967, writ ref. n. r. e.).
In Rosborough v. Cook, 108 Tex. 364, 194 S.W. 131 (1917), Chief Justice Phillips said: “The law of limitation, of actions for land is founded upon notice. The title by limitation ripens, primarily, only because, in such manner and for such period of time as the different statutes require, notice is given of the hostile claim.” The use by the one who occupies land with his instruments or animals must be so open and of such a nature as to notify a watchful owner of its existence and of its hostile character so as to put the owner on inquiry as to the claim of the user. ' This is the ultimate question with which we are now concerned.
It is the consideration of notice that leads to the rule that unenclosed cattle constitute no evidence of adverse possession. No statute requires that the adverse claimant build a fence around the land he claims, but in a society where unenclosed land is considered open range and commons for the livestock of others, the mere presence of these animals will not be considered as adverse to the ownership of the land. De Las Fuentes v. Macdonell, 85 Tex. 132, 20 S.W. 43 (1892).
The same consideration may be applied to livestock which graze from one tract to another within an enclosure. If the livestock come from an adjoining tract owned by the owner of the animals, their crossing the boundary is not itself notice of a hostile claim. Harmon v. Overton Refining Co., 130 Tex. 365, 109 S.W.2d 457, 110 S.W.2d 555 (1937).
Considerations of notice also lead to the rule that the existence of an enclosure is not itself notice of an adverse claim where the claimant and his livestock have no visible relation to fences bordering the disputed tract. West Production Co. v. Kahanek, 132 Tex. 153, 121 S.W.2d 328 (1938).
The majority quote Vineyard v. Brundrett, 17 Tex.Civ.App. 42, 42 S.W. 232 (1897) wherein it was stated that the enclosure did not give evidence that the land was “designedly inclosed.” That was significant to the court in the Vineyard case when it came to consider the effect of the north fence on the issue of adverse possession, but that court did not stop with the north fence. It looked at all of the evidence bearing on visible appropriation and concluded:
“When we take into consideration the extent of the bay shores, the size of the tract, the inclosures of others, and the facts that the fences were made to inclose other lands than those in controversy, and that the defendant did not claim title to all the land within the barriers relied on to form the inclosure, the evidence is clearly insufficient to show a possession to support the bar of five years’ limitation.”
*147The statute requires visible appropriation by the adverse claimant. It does not require a “designed” enclosure. We ask the jury in a single issue whether claimant’s total use of the land was actual and visible appropriation. We do not ask about the fences and the weed chopping and the cattle in separate issues. All of the circumstances of the case must be considered, and we look to more than the fences, or to any one section of the fence. If an adverse claimant, occupying and using land by grazing cattle thereon, posts the premises by putting his own sign along the fence (no matter how casual or incidental a fence), the sign is surely forceful evidence of visible appropriation. Click v. Collins, 273 S.W.2d 90 (Tex.Civ.App.1954, writ ref. n. r. e.).
When the testimony of the Weinachts is assumed to be true, and when everything done on the land is considered together, the decision in the trial court and the court of civil appeals is warranted. I would uphold that decision.
DENTON, J., joins in this dissent.