Collins v. Republic Nat. Bank of Dallas

• Decision Date: 22 April 1953
• Docket Number: No. A-3910,A-3910
• Citation: Collins v. Republic Nat. Bank of Dallas, 152 Tex. 392, 258 S.W.2d 305 (Tex. 1953)
• Parties: COLLINS et al. v. REPUBLIC NAT. BANK OF DALLAS et al.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 305

258 S.W.2d 305

152 Tex. 392

COLLINS et al. v. REPUBLIC NAT. BANK OF DALLAS et al.

No. A-3910.

Supreme Court of Texas.

April 22, 1953.

Rehearing Denied June 17, 1953.

Conway, Scharff & Walker and Richey, Sheehy & Teeling, Waco, for petitioners Mrs. Lillie Collins et al.

Fitzpatrick & Dunnam, Waco, for petioner Mrs. Hattie Mae Nelson.

Whitaker, Turpin, Kerr, Smith & Brooks and Raymond A. Lynch, Midland, for appellees.

CULVER, Justice.

The petitioners sought by suit in trespass to try title to recover from respondents certain undivided mineral interests in four sections of land in Andrews County. A judgment in the District Court in their favor was reversed and rendered by the El Paso Court of Civil Appeals. 254 S.W.2d 406.

In 1932, G. A. Stanfield, the common source of title, conveyed to Abe Nelson, his son-in-law, by warranty deed in usual form the four sections, excepting an undivided one-fourth mineral interest which had theretofore been conveyed to The Texas Company. The consideration in the deed was recited to be $5,000, payable $1,000 in cash and four notes of $1,000 each, payable on or before 1, 2, 3, and 4 years after date, and retaining a vendor's lien to secure the payment of the notes, interest and attorney's fees. On the 9th day of March, 1933, Stanfield executed a release of this vendor's lien reciting the payment of the notes and all interest thereon which was filed and placed of record. Parol testimony was offered by the petitioners and admitted over objection to the effect that no consideration was paid by Nelson to Stanfield, and no notes executed, the agreement being that Nelson would hold title to the lands for the benefit of Stanfield's eight children.

On October 22, 1935, Nelson, joined by his wife, one of the children of the grantor, Stanfield, executed in regular form an oil and gas lease on three of the sections of land covering and including an undivided three-fourths interest in the minerals.

After the death of Stanfield, Abe Nelson and wife conveyed to W. E. Wallace on June 11, 1936, an undivided one-eighth mineral interest in the land (not questioned here) which, according to the parol testimony, was for the purpose of defraying the funeral expenses of the grantor, Stanfield. There remained then in Abe Nelson legal title to the surface and to five-eighths of the mineral estate which Nelson in evident good faith attempted at different times to convey to the children of Stanfield or grantees designated by them, but each deed recited the conveyance of an undivided one-eighth interest in the lands without reference specifically to the mineral estate which resulted in the conveying of the legal title to all of the mineral estate to the first five grantees, leaving the petitioners with title only to an undivided one-eighth interest each in the surface of the land. Those conveyances were as follows: August 14, 1936, to Mrs. Irene Pipkin; June 25, 1938, to S. P. Stanfield; December 3, 1938, to Mrs. Lela Williams; April 22, 1939, to Frank Stanfield; July 14, 1939, to Barney A. Garrett; April 30, 1940, to Mrs. M. G. Gates; April 30, 1940, to Mrs. Lillie Collins. Respondents claim title through the conveyances to Mrs. Pipkin and Barney A. Garrett. On the 17th day of February, 1939, Nelson conveyed to his wife, Mrs. Hattie Mae Nelson, one of the children of the grantor, Stanfield, 'all of my undivided interest in and to Sections Nos. 3, 4, 7 and 8, in Block A-40, as her separate estate.'

The Court of Civil Appeals decided and we think correctly so, that the consideration in the deed from Stanfield to Nelson being contractual in nature, parol testimony was not admissible to vary the express terms of the deed, in the absence of fraud, accident or mistake, and that, therefore, petitioners were not entitled to recover. Coverdill v. Seymour, 94 Tex. 1, 57 S.W. 37; Kidd v. Young, 144 Tex. 322, 190 S.W.2d 65; Johnson v. Johnson, Tex.Com.App., 14 S.W.2d 805, and Mahoney v. Mahoney, Tex.Civ.App., 103 S.W.2d 459 (writ refused).

In the case of Pridgen v. Furnish, Tex.Com.App., 23 S.W.2d 307, the point seems to have been squarely presented where suit had been brought upon a vendor's lien note. The court, referring to the terms of the deed which recited the consideration of the execution and delivery of the promissory note and the retention of the vendor's lien on the property, says: 'These stipulations are not mere recitations capable of being contradicted, but are unequivocal and contractual in their nature.'

In this connection petitioners cite the case of Austin v. Austin, 143 Tex. 29, 182 S.W.2d 355, 358, where parol evidence was properly admitted to show that a purported deed was in fact intended as a mortgage. In that case Judge Folley does distinguish it from the case of Pridgen v. Furnish, supra, saying 'that case may be distinguished from the instant case in that such suit was for the enforcement of the payment of the vendor's lien note, and the parol testimony offered was in direct conflict with the terms of the written instrument sued upon.' A review of the facts of that case, however, reveals no similarity to those under consideration here. The notes executed by the petitioner had been paid by the grantors according to the oral agreement. There were many other facts and circumstances which tended...