Court Opinion

ID: 9827423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:32:21.368913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:31.189409
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee Upshur county, in its motion for rehearing, says:
“The court interprets the fact that the statute of limitations does not run against the county school lands, as indicating the intention to limit the powers of commissioners’ court in dealing with its lands, and the general rules, applicable to individual owners, do not apply. The Constitution of 1876 expressly provides that ‘no adverse possession or limitation shall ever be available against the title of any county.’ The very fact that this and other provisions, limiting the authority of the commissioners, are expressly set out in the Constitution, would indicate that no other limitations were intended. This is a familiar canon of construction.”
The above statement is probably referable to the following language used in our opinion:
“The repose of titles is the public policy underlying the statutes of limitations, and which the law reverses as to subdivisions of governments in certain instances. Delta County v. Blackburn, 100 Tex. 51, 93 S. W. 419; and which the Constitution was particular to reverse as to county school lands; for the courts to deny an undisturbed claim to land where the county is administering it solely as a trust where no agreement of boundary is proven, but at best mere acquiescence for a great length of time, is within the spirit of the same policy of reversal.”
The courts substitute the very opposite policy with reference to limitation applied to subdivisions of government when the purpose is “to protect causes of action asserted by them when ‘they are of a public nature and such as pertain purely to governmental affairs.’ ” Delta County v. Blackburn, supra. In that cause Delta county was suing to recover installments of interest due upon an obligation for its county school lands. The Supreme Court held that limitation did not apply, upon the ground that the county is an instrument of the state for educational purposes, and suits, brought by such a trustee, “are practically suits in behalf of the state,” notwithstanding the title to the land, which the proceeds represent, is in the county. Where the county is administering the subject of the suit as a trustee, as in this cause, it is a suit in behalf of the state, as much so as in the Delta county case; of course, Justice Williams, when he used the language in the Delta county cause that a county, in suing for the trust school funds, was practically a suit in behalf of the state, did so in a qualified sense. Though the makers of the Constitution were particular enough to say that neither adverse possession nor limitation would avail against county school land, this was the law without the Constitution saying it; and the “familiar canon of construction” invoked that the mention of one limitation would be the exclusion of others, is precisely reversed, and so held in such matters. Same case; also Brown v. Sneed, 77 Tex. 475, 14 S. W. 248.
Appellees Upshur and Travis counties contend that this court has mistaken the full force and scope of the decision of the Supreme Court, in the case of Krause v. El Paso, 101 Tex. 212, 106 S. W. 121, 14 L. R. A. (N. S.) 582, 130 Am. St. Rep. 831. The Supreme Court did hold in that cause that the city of El Paso was estopped to claim a portion of a public street. The court of Civil Appeals opinion (Krause v. City of El Paso, 101 S. W. 828) and the opinion of the Supreme Court say that at the time Mrs. Porter, who built the brick building on the street, purchased the lot from Rector and Campbell, the previous owners, there was an ordinance of the city of El Paso, which requires persons who desired to erect improvements upon that property to have their lines designated by the city engineer; “and Mrs. Porter, being desirous to erect a house upon her property, called upon the city engineer to show her the lines of the streets surrounding her property. The city engineer, in accordance with her request, surveyed the lot and designated the lines and corner according to the first Mills map. Mrs. Porter built upon the property a brick house and went into pos-ession of it, and the possession has been continuous since that time until this suit was brought.” The city compelled her to build a sidewalk “along her property at the place where the controversy arose, which recognized her. right as she claimed it, as it was shown upon the first Mills map, and in subsequent years she was at different times *856required to repair tile sidewalk.” Mrs. Porter’s request to the city engineer, the survey of the property by him for her, and the erection of a substantial brick building thereupon “shortly thereafter,” were found as facts by the trial court. Mrs. Porter’s application to the mayor for a permit to build the house, giving a description of the lot on which the house was to be erected, was prescribed by ordinance before the building could occur; another ordinance made it the duty of the civil engineer, upon request by the owner, to survey the lot for that purpose. Appellees are correct when they say that this application to build was not proven, but was presumed by the Supreme Court, as an affirmative fact, on account of the ordinance and the presumption of duty by the officers. Our statement is in accordance with the holding and the facts found and presumptively found, but a little broader than it should have been. The Supreme Court, on account of it being a violation of the law for the owner to build without a permit, assumed as an affirmative fact, in connection with the circumstances recited, that she made the application to the mayor for that purpose. The argument is that, because the Supreme Court assumed that the officers did their duty, and that Mrs. Porter did not violate the law and made the application, we should imply against Colorado county an agreement of boundary. This analogy we think is too remote as applied to this record.
Upshur county says:
“In the case of Talley v. Lamar County (Sup.) 137 S. W. 1135 (not heretofore cited in this cause), the doctrine of estoppel was invoked, but it was held that the facts were not proven, but the inference from the opinion of Judge Dibrell is clear, that if the facts had been proven, it would have been applied.”
This case was cited several times by appellant, Colorado county, in its brief, and attempted to be tested by this court. The expressions of Justice Dibrell are really against the contention of appellee, but the facts are so remote and different as that we did not cite the case. Of course, “if the facts had been proven” in that cause, Lamar county would have abandoned its location of its school land; but, in order to abandon, it not only must have had an intention to abandon, but the state should grant it other land of an equal amount in place of that previously located; and as bearing upon this question this is all that the court held. Of course if the state had granted Lamar county other land, the previous grant was withdrawn, and the sovereign was agreeing to the abandonment and relinquishment.
We have gone to the testimony,and reviewed part of the record and are not inclined to go further than what was said in our original opinion with reference to the corners. The motion for rehearing is in all things overruled.