Court Opinion

ID: 9834282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:27:51.690307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:13.530549
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Kehearing.
In Pierce v. Fort, 60 Tex. 464, the following quotation was made from Moreland v. Barnhart, 44 Tex. 275:
“That a deed absolute on its face may be shown by parol to be intended as a .trust, has been often decided by this court. The trust must be shown with clearness and certainty, and in some of the cases it has been held that it must be shown by the testimony of more than one .witness, unless his testimony be confirmed by corroborating circumstances.
Following that quotation, the court said that a number of other decisions, including Miller v. Thatcher, 9 Tex. 482, 60 Am. Dec. 172, laid down the same technical rule. The court then made the following announcement:
“But in the later case of Gaines v. The Exchange Bank, decided at Austin in 1882 (1 Law Reporter, p. 477), it was held that this technical rule was applicable only to cases in which it was sought to establish the trust by proving the declarations of a deceased trustee, or where the trustee, was testifying to the trust in his own interest.”
To the same effect are the following decisions: American Freehold Land Mortgage Co. v. Pace, 23 Tex. Civ. App, 222, 56 S. W. 393 (local citation), and authorities there cited; Allen v. Williams (Tex. Civ. App.) 218 S. W. 135; Graves v. Graves (Tex. Civ. App.) 232 S. W. 543, writ of error refused.
Furthermore, the testimony pointed out in the opinion on original hearing, corroborated by the testimony of John Sykes, was sufficient to satisfy the strict technical rule invoked by appellants in their motion for rehearing.
The record shows that prior to the institution of the present suit attorneys for John Sykes filed suit in his name, in which he claimed a laborer’s lien upon the property, but that suit was later dismissed, and the present suit was instituted by and upon the advice of other counsel. In.the motion for rehearing it is insisted that the institution of such former suit constituted an election to claim an indebtedness for the amount John Sykes had incurred in the erection of the building, and that such election operated as an estoppel against him to maintain the present suit. A sufficient answer to that contention is that appellants filed no plea alleging such election and claiming the same as an estoppel. Furthermore, appellants never urged that claim in their motion for a new trial as a ground for setting aside the judgment, nor did they urge that defense in their brief upon original hearing in this court. Clearly it is too late now, on motion for rehearing for the first time, to urge that contention as a reason for setting aside the judgment heretofore rendered by this court, even though it should be said that the estoppel claimed would otherwise be applicable, and which question it is unnecessary for us to decide, and which we do not determine.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.