Court Opinion

ID: 9830032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:49:49.755156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:11.234852
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Both the appellant and the appellee have presented motions for rehearing. The motion of the appellee complains of the action of this court in sustaining the appellant’s third point of error. The appellee contends that the appellant, by her trial pleadings, disclaimed any interest in all of the land described in the appellee’s trial petition except the 84-acre tract and as to that tract she pleaded not guilty and asserted a limitation title thereto; that she had been denied an affirmance of her limitation title as to the 84-acre tract and therefore, because of her disclaimer, the description of the Mayo 21-acre tract as excepted in the judgment could not be harmful to her. An examination of the appellant’s pleadings reveals that in describing the 84-acre tract, to which she pleaded not guilty and which she claimed by limitation, the southwest and the northwest boundary lines of the 21-acre Mayo tract were named as boundary lines of the 84-acre tract and that she described therp by referring to the deed from Necker to Mayo, dated October 8, 1875, and the recording thereof. The appellee did not use the metes and bounds description of the boundaries of the 21-acre tract as they were contained in the Necker to Mayo deed but, by reference, adopted the boundaries provided for in the deed and at the same time used a metes and bounds description of those boundaries different from the metes and bounds description as set out in the deed. Appellee contends this new metes and bounds description was established by a recent survey on the ground. We hold to our original opinion that the determination of the location of the northwest boundary line of the 21-acre Mayo tract is essential, not only to determine the extent of appellant’s disclaimer, but also to determine the extent of appellee’s recovery. The appellant’s plea of not guilty put in issue the location of the southwest and of the northwest boundary lines of the Mayo tract. She was entitled, as a matter of defense, to have the location of the northwest boundary line of this 21-acre tract determined by a jury. The appellee’s motion for a rehearing will therefore be overruled.
In the appellant’s motion for a rehearing, complaint is made that in our original opinion we did not completely dispose of the appellant’s first and second points of error presented in her original brief. By those points, the appellant complained of the action of the trial court in refusing to grant the appellant’s motion for an instructed verdict predicated on the contention that the appellee, as plaintiff, had failed to prove title to any part of the lands described in the appellant’s deeds and answer and had failed to prove the location of the lands purported to be described in the deeds under which the appel-lee claims title.
It will be seen that- part of the 84-acre tract claimed by the appellant, and the title to which she put in issue by her plea of not guilty, lies within that part of the survey circumscribed by the lines E-K-AB. The appellant contends that the appel-lee does not show a complete chain of title ■to that tract in so far as it embraces the part of the 84-acre tract claimed by the appellant. The chain of title runs by patent from the State of Texas to Miles, then from Miles to Decker, and from Decker to Mat Steussey. The sufficiency of the appellee’s exhibits numbered 34, 63, 64, 65, 67, 73, and 75 to complete the chain of title to the appellee is challenged by the appellant.
It is our opinion that the trial court correctly interpreted the effect of the foregoing deeds by holding that the plaintiff had shown a valid chain of title to itself to all that part of the 84-acre tract claimed by the appellant embraced in tract E-K-A-B. The record, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 4, shows a conveyance of the west part of the sur*591vey, 250 acres, from Isaac Decker to Mat Steussey. Mat Steussey conveyed to Emil Seebak, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 34, a tract of land “being the W. side of a 200 acre tract purchased from Isaac Decker,” being part of the Prather survey, and “beginning, at W. cor. of a 92½ acre tract sold to Gus-taf Mischke & Co; Thence, N. 45 W. to the cor. of said Prather sur. which is also the S. cor. of Chas. Frazer sur; Thence, with the Frazer & the Prater S. 45 E. to the N. E. cor. of the Prater sur; Thence S. 45 E. to Mischke & Co. W. cor; Thence with Mischke & Co. line to the place of beginning, containing 108 acres more or less.” The appellant contends that the court was not justified in construing 'this deed to the effect that the survey commenced at point E on the plat and went thence to point B, thence to point A, thence to point K, thence to point E. We do not agree with appellant in this contention. We are of the opinion that the trial court was warranted in construing the deed as referring for beginning point to tract EK-F-G theretofore conveyed by Mathias Steusey to Gustof Mischke, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 33. Likewise, we conclude that the trial court was warranted in construing the deeds from Seeback to Teske, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 63, from Teske to Brown, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 64, and from Brown to Gladish, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 65, as conveying the same tract E-B-A-K. The metes and bounds description in the deed from R. A. Gladish to Margaret S. Coates, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 67, standing alone is, to us, unintelligible but with the aid of the recited reference to the above-named deeds from Seeback to Teske, Teske to Brown, and from Brown to Gladish, it is our opinion that the Gladish to Coates deed can be properly construed to refer to all of tract E-B-A-K except an 8-acre tract referred to therein as having been sold to Coy Thomas and manifestly not embracing any part of the land claimed by the appellant. Thereafter, deeds from Coates to Cochran and from Cochran to the. appellee complete the chain of title.
By her fourth assignment of error in the motion for rehearing, the appellant contends that this court has not passed on the question of the sufficiency of appel-lee’s proof of its chain of title to tract GE-K-F, commonly referred to as the 92-acre tract. As we analyze the appellant’s reasoning, the contention of a break in the chain is based on the proof that Decker deeded the 250-acre tract to Mat Steussey, not Mathias Steusey, and the deed from Steusey to Mischke, dated-, 22, 1872, conveying the 92-acre tract, was given by Mathias Steusey, not Mat Steussey. It is asserted that the court cannot assume that Mat Steussey, the grantee in the Decker deed, is the same person as Mathias Steusey, the grantor in the deed to Misch-ke, and that, therefore, there is a break in the title chain. The name Matt has been held to be recognized as the abbreviation or contraction of Matthew. Chandler v. Robinett, 21 Cal.App. 333, 131 P. 891. We have found no case involving the use of Mat as a first name. Matthias is the name of the disciple chosen to be one of the twelve to fill the place vacated by Judas Iscariot. Acts 1:26. This is also the name of a Roman emperor and the name of a King of Hungary. While it is a name not in as com-jnon usage as the name Matthew, yet, in the instant case, where a tract of land was deeded to Mat Steussey, using an apparently abbreviated first name, and this was followed by a deed, covering part of that same tract, by Mathias Steusey, we are of the opinion that the court correctly assumed that the name Mat was an abbreviation or contraction of the name Mathias. The presumption arising from an identity of names would therefore follow. Knight v. Berger, 57 Cal.App.2d 763, 135 P.2d 389; State Bank & Trust Co. v. W. O. Horn & Bro., Inc., Tex.Civ.App., 295 S.W. 698. Under this presumption, the chain of title to the 92.8-acre tract G-E-K-F connects down to the appellee.
The appellant contends that there is an unlocated 60-acre tract evidenced by deed from Galveston Investment Company to J. R. Hill, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 27, and that the appellee has failed to show its location and has failed to show whether or not it covers any part of the land in controversy; that the appellee having introduced the deed showing this outstanding title, it devolved upon appellee to show the location of the land covered by the deed and to establish that it did not cover any part of the land claimed by the appellant. The deed in question describes a tract of land as follows:
“Beginning at the North corner of the J. W. Fowler 460 acre tract. Thence S. 45 E. 1089 feet with the S. E. line of said tract; Thence West, 45 S 2400 feet. *592Thence N. 45 W. 1089 feet; Thence East 45 North 2400 ft. to the place of beginning, containing 60 acres of land.”
The record reveals a conveyance to W. J. Fowler of the 390-acre tract C-G-F-D, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 11, and a conveyance from W. J. Fowler to A. M. Rhodes of a tract described as 460 acres of the A. Prather Survey, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 12, the recording reference in that deed being to Book X, pages 142 and 143, for further description. At page 142 of Volume X, of the deed records of Montgomery County, is found the deed from Mat Steussey to Isaac Decker, conveying tract C-G-F-D. Regardless of whether the starting point of the 60-acre survey is at point F, the north corner of the 390-acre tract, or point K, the north corner of the 92.8-acre tract, or at some point along the line K-F, a sufficient distance northwest of point D to be the north corner of a 460-acre tract, yet the call for distance West 45 degrees South is only 2400 feet and, under the record, would not extend a sufficient distance southwest to embrace any of the land in controversy claimed by the appellant. The appellant is therefore in nowise affected by this deed from Galveston Investment Company to J. R. Hill', and the point will be overruled.
We have examined the remaining assignments of error contained in the appellant’s motion for a rehearing and, in our opinion, a further discussion of them is unnecessary. The appellant’s motion for a rehearing is overruled.