Alice State Bank v. Houston Pasture Co
| Decision Date | 03 June 1918 |
| Docket Number | No. 154,154 |
| Citation | 38 S.Ct. 496,247 U.S. 240,62 L.Ed. 1096 |
| Parties | ALICE STATE BANK et al. v. HOUSTON PASTURE CO |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Henry W. Taft, of New York City, and Walter P. Napier, of San Antonio, Tex., for petitioners.
Messrs. Joseph W. Bailey, of Dallas, Tex., and William D. Gordon, of Beaumont, Tex., for respondent.
This is a suit to recover 1,280 acres of land in San Patricio County, Texas. There was a trial by jury in which the Court directed a verdict for the plaintiff as to all but certain excepted portions not in controversy here. Exceptions were saved by the defendants, the petitioners, to their not being allowed to go to the jury on the question whether they had a good defence under the Texas statutes of limitation, but they were overruled and the judgment was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. A petition for certiorari was allowed on the suggestion that there was a manifest conflict between the ruling and the decisions of the State Court.
An Act of July 22, 1870 (Sp. Acts 12th Leg. c. 19), declared that a land certificate for 1,280 acres theretofore issued to General Sam Houston for military services was a 'just claim from its original date' and authorized the issue of a 'patent on the same, in the name of the heirs of General Sam Houston, deceased.' General Houston's will gave discretionary power to his executors to make such disposition of his personal and real estate as might seem to them best for the interests of his family. n July 22, 1871, Houston's surviving executor made an instrument purporting to convey the above mentioned land warrant and the interest of Houston's estate and heirs to Colman, Mathis and Fulton. On December 30, 1872, the warrant was located on land already occupied by those grantees, and the executor's conveyance to them was recorded on July 17, 1873. The defendants held deeds under the successors of Colman, Mathis and Fulton. A patent was issued 'to the heirs of Sam Houston, deceased,' on June 22, 1874. The plaintiff derived its title from these heirs under deeds executed in 1914.
A plausible argument can be made that the working of the Act of 1870 and other pertinent facts and statutes which we do not recite was to give to the land warrant the validity and effect that it would have had if lawfully executed in General Houston's life. But as that is not the ground upon which the writ of certiorari was asked or granted we confine our discussion to the matter relied upon in asking the intervention of this Court. Hubbard v. Tod, 171 U. S. 474, 494, 19 Sup. Ct. 14, 43 L. Ed. 246. The defendants alleged that...
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