Court Opinion

ID: 9829721
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:33:39.549004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:59.608849
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
An act passed by the Twenty-Kinth Legislature, approved March 16, 1905 (see General Laws 1905, p. 85), reads: “Be it enacted by the Legislature of the state of Texas: That hereafter all persons claiming the right to purchase or lease any public free school lands, or any lands belonging to the State University, or either of the state asylums which have been heretofore or which may be hereafter sold or leased to any other person under any provision of the law authorizing the sale or lease of any of said lands, shall bring his suit therefor within one year after this act goes into effect, or after the date of the award of such sale or lease, if such award is made after the taking effect of this act, and not thereafter. If no suit has been instituted by any person claiming the right to purchase or lease any of said land within the period of time limited in the first section of this act, it shall be conclusive evidence that all the requirements of the law with reference to the sale or lease of such lands have been complied with; provided that nothing in this act' shall be construed to affect the state of Texas in any action or proceeding that may be brought by it in respect to any of said lands.”
In his motion for rehearing appellant calls attention to the facts shown in the record that the two sections of land in controversy were awarded to him by the land commissioner November 10, 1906, and April 19, 1907, respectively, and that no suit was filed against him to recover the same, and that he instituted this suit in May, 1909, more than one year after said awards. Upon those facts appellant invokes the benefits of the act- referred to above and the decision of our Supreme Court construing the same in Erp v. Tillman, 131 S. W. 1057. In that case there was a contest' over the title of a section which had been awarded to an applicant by the land, commissioner, the validity of the award being challenged, and our Supreme Court said: “A year was deemed sufficient time in which to allow awards to be put to the test previously applied at the instance of intending purchasers and lessees, and after which only the state could interfere. This seems to make it sufficiently evident that this is not an ordinary statute of limitation. The award in suc-h a contest as this constitutes the title of the purchaser which may be produced in evidence without special pleading, and when it is produced and shown to have stood for a year this statute,, of which the court must take notice, makes-it conclusive evidence of a sale valid against, every one but the state.”
[3] However, the statement of facts in the-record in this case shows that appellant testified that he paid the interest due the state on; the two sections for 1908 and also remitted' to the land commissioner the interest on-those two sections for the year 1909, but' that' the remittance for 1909 was returned to-him by the land commissioner. Written documents in duplicate, addressed to the land' commissioner at Austin, Tex., describing the surveys in controversy, purporting to be statements by appellant of remittances of interest on those sections for the year 1909, one of the copies relating t’o each section being styled, “Original Coupon and Receipt (to be returned to sender),” and the other,. “Duplicate Coupon (to be kept by Land Office),” were introduced in evidence by appellant. Across the face of the copy designated, “to be returned to sender,” is indorsed’ the word, “Forfeited,” and across the face of the copy designated, “to be kept by Land Office,” is written: “Forfeited. Filed October 20, 1909. J. T. Robison, Commissioner.” Appellant did not testify that the land had not been forfeited to the state by the land commissioner and introduced no testimony in any manner tending to dispute the apparent-showing that the land had been forfeited,.
[4] In the absence of some showing or explanation, we think the facts recited above-prove prima facie that the land had been forfeited, and, as it was incumbent upon appellant' as plaintiff in the case to show title in-himself, the judgment was correct, independent of the reasons assigned in our original-opinion.
The motion for rehearing is therefore overruled.