Flynn v. Hancock

• Decision Date: 06 April 1904
• Parties: FLYNN et ux. v. HANCOCK.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

80 S.W. 245

FLYNN et ux. v. HANCOCK.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

April 6, 1904.

Appeal from Lamar County Court; Ben H. Denton, Judge.

Action by Harriet Hancock, by her guardian, J. P. Morris, against Jack Flynn and wife. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

J. R. G. Long, and Hodges & Moore, for appellant. Moore, Park & Birmingham, for appellee.

FLY, J.

This is an action of trespass to try title to a parcel of land in the city of Paris, Tex., instituted by appellee, a lunatic, through her guardian, J. P. Morris, against Jack Flynn and his wife, Alice Flynn. Appellants answered by general denial and a plea of not guilty, and specially pleaded that they had purchased the land from Jerry Hancock, Claude Hancock, and Ulric Hancock, and claimed only to the extent of the interest that their vendors had in the land, which was one-half of it. The cause was tried by the court, and judgment rendered in favor of appellee for the land and $48 for use of it, it being specially provided in the decree that appellants were not divested thereby of any title they might have to the land, and that appellants should not be precluded from setting up the value of their improvements in any suit to try title to the land or to partition the same. It appears from the statement of facts that about 1893 Jerry Hancock, Sr., died, leaving surviving him his wife, Harriet, and their two children, Claude and Ulric, and Jerry Hancock, Jr., an illegitimate son. At the time of the death of the senior Jerry Hancock he and his wife were occupying the property in controversy as their homestead, and she, with her minor children, Claude and Ulric, continued to occupy it as their homestead until February 24, 1899, when Harriet Hancock was adjudged a lunatic, and was confined in the Asylum for the Insane at Terrell, Tex. The Hancocks are negroes; Claude and Ulric being respectively 19 and 16 years of age. On March 15, 1902, Dr. J. P. Morris was appointed the guardian of the estate of Harriet Hancock, the judgment of the county court reciting that she was a lunatic, and a citizen of Lamar county. After Harriet was confined in the lunatic asylum, Jack Flynn procured a deed to the premises in controversy to his wife from the illegitimate son of Jerry Hancock, deceased, and the two minors, and made improvements on the property.

There is no merit whatever in the first assignment of error. The fact that Harriet Hancock was confined in an asylum situated in another county than Lamar did not deprive the latter county of its jurisdiction in matters of guardianship of her estate. She was not deprived, by being placed in the asylum of her residence in Lamar county, within the purview of article 2566, Rev. St. 1895.

While it does not appear, as contended by appellants. that the...