Brown v. Ackerman
| Citation | 17 S.W.2d 771 |
| Decision Date | 05 June 1929 |
| Docket Number | (No. 1084-5310.) |
| Parties | BROWN v. ACKERMAN. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
George P. Brown, of Edinburg, and R. S. Ragsdale, of Burkburnett, for plaintiff in error.
W. R. Montgomery, W. H. Sadler, J. C. Hall, and J. F. Carl, all of Edinburg, for defendant in error.
This was an action of trespass to try title, in which J. J. Thames was agreed to be the common source under which both parties claimed.
Defendant in error established a complete record title from the common source; his immediate grantor being C. D. Martin. Plaintiff in error attempted to prove an equitable title by introducing an option contract executed by J. J. Thames, by the terms of which A. J. McColl was given an option to purchase the land in controversy on or before January 1, 1914, which was subsequently extended, by a supplemental contract, to September 1, 1914. The record did not show that any conveyance was executed under this contract, but disclosed that defendant in error purchased the property practically two months after the extended option had expired by its own terms.
Plaintiff in error also offered in evidence a deed to him from the Rio Grande Development Company. Parol proof was made that C. D. Martin, defendant in error's immediate grantor, was what is denominated a "straw man," holding the title for said corporation. It was claimed that McColl was entitled to receive a conveyance under his option contract with Thames and, as he was the owner of practically all of the capital stock of the Rio Grande Development Company, that, when Martin acquired the legal title to the land, it inured to the benefit of McColl's company.
It is plaintiff in error's contention that the record of the option contract and the deed from the Rio Grande Development Company to him was sufficient to put defendant in error upon notice that said company owned the equitable title to the land.
No proof whatever was offered tending to show that defendant in error knew that Martin was not the beneficial owner of the title he purported to convey, or that McColl, or his corporation, the Rio Grande Development Company, had acquired, or was entitled to acquire, any title to the property from Thames under the option...
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In re Great Plains Western Ranch Co., Inc.
...title whether or not she actually saw those documents. Southwest Title Ins. Co. v. Woods, 449 S.W.2d 773 (Tex.1970); Brown v. Ackerman, 17 S.W.2d 771, 772 (Tex.Com.App.1929); Lumpkin v. Adams, 74 Tex. 96, 11 S.W. 1070, 1072 (1889). Similarly in Texas, one is deemed to know of an unrecorded ......
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Grogan-Cochran Lumber Co. v. McComb, 4326.
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