Anderson v. Waco State Bank

• Decision Date: 19 April 1894
• Citation: 28 S.W. 344
• Parties: ANDERSON v. WACO STATE BANK.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

28 S.W. 344

ANDERSON v. WACO STATE BANK.

Supreme Court of Texas.

April 19, 1894.¹

Application for writ of error to court of civil appeals for the Third supreme judicial district.

Gust Anderson appealed, from a judgment in favor of the Waco State Bank, to the court of civil appeals, and, the judgment being there affirmed, he applies to the supreme court for a writ of error. Application overruled.

The opinion of the court of civil appeals was as follows (Key, J.):

"Without discussing the questions of law involved, we call attention to the fact that, since this case was tried in the court below, our supreme court has held that since the passage of the act to prevent the forfeiture of the rights of purchasers of the public free school, university, and asylum lands, approved February 23, 1885, no authority has existed for a nonjudicial forfeiture of a sale of any of said lands. Stock Co. v. McCarty, 85 Tex. 412, 21 S. W. 598. It follows, therefore, that the pretended forfeiture of the original sale by a state officer was void, and it was wholly unnecessary for appellant to repurchase the land. We have considered all the questions presented in appellant's brief, and, finding no error, affirm the judgment. Affirmed."

Robert H. Rogers and J. B. Scarborough, for applicant.

STAYTON, C. J.

Under the facts found, there cannot be any question as to the correctness of the conclusion on the jurisdictional matter on which applicant relies for writ of error; but it is deemed proper, in view of the fact that the court of civil appeals, following the decision in the case of Stock Co. v. McCarty, 85 Tex. 412, 21 S. W. 598, held that there was no law in force in 1887 authorizing the forfeiture of school lands bought from the state, otherwise than through the courts, to say that in the decision of that case the attention of this court was not called to the act approved April 1, 1887. The eleventh section of that act declares: "If upon the first day of August of any year the interest due on any obligation remains unpaid, the commissioner of the general land office shall endorse on such obligation, `land forfeited,' and shall cause an entry to that effect to be made on the account kept with the purchaser, and thereupon said land shall be forfeited to the state, without necessity of re-entry, or judicial ascertainment, and shall revert to the particular fund to which it originally belonged, and be resold under the provisions of this act or any future law." The same s...