Gray v. Lewis
| Decision Date | 03 May 1951 |
| Docket Number | No. 12255,12255 |
| Citation | 241 S.W.2d 313 |
| Parties | GRAY et al. v. LEWIS et al. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Joel W. Cook, Young & Young and Jack C. Young, Houston, for appellants.
T. J. Stovall, T. J. Stovall, Jr., J. D. O'Bryant and James C. Boone, Houston, for appellees.
This appeal is from a judgment of the 61st District Court of Harris County, in a building-restriction case, involving some property in Park Place, in Harris County, owned by the appellees, upon which they had erected a business building, which the appellants (also owners of property in such addition) sought to have abated, or removed, as being violative of restrictions, in 'the Country-Club Addition' to the City of Park Place, impressed thereon by the original developers of such addition.
The court first submitted to a jury special-issues, embodying what it then deemed to be the controlling questions-of-fact raised by the pleadings and evidence, which were answered favorably to the appellants; on consideration of the motions of both sides for judgment, however, the court concluded it had erred in such submission, and, in effect, that it should have originally granted the motion of the appellees for an instructed verdict in their favor; it, therefore, set aside such verdict of the jury, and entered judgment in favor of the appellees, in substance, as follows:
'* * * it being found by the court that, as a matter of law, from the evidence presented, that the motion of defendants and cross-plaintiffs to disregard the findings of the jury to special-issues Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, should now be granted, and that their motion for a judgment non obstante veredicto should now be granted, and that the motion for judgment filed by plaintiffs and cross-defendants should be denied.
'It is, therefore, Decreed that the plaintiffs, B. J. Breaux, M. G. Gray, Alice C. Woodruff, L. B. Moore, E. J. Price, Jr., E. J. Price, and the intervenor, Matilda Delnay, individually, and in the representative capacity in which they sued, take nothing against the defendants, Beulah B. Lewis, George E. Lewis, and J. H. Lee.
'It is further Decreed that the cross-plaintiffs, Beulah B. Lewis, and George E. Lewis, have judgment against the cross-defendants, B. J. Breaux, M. G. Gray, Alice C. Woodruff, L. B. Moore, E. J. Price, Jr., E. J. Price, and Matilda Delnay, that the alleged restrictions contained in the deed from Park Place Company to Beulah B. Lewis, dated July 23, 1943, recorded in Volume 1300, at Page 226, of the Deed Records of Harris County, Texas, insofar as they pertain to the property described in such deed to-wit:
"The Northeast fifty-five (55) feet of Lot One (1) and all of Lots Two (2) to Eight (8), inclusive, of Block One Hundred One (101), of Country Club District of Park Place, an addition to the City of Houston, in Harris County, Texas, according to the plat of said Addition recorded in Volume 7, at page 64, of the Map Records of Harris County, Texas,' are void, and of no further force and effect.'
Through an extended number of points-of-error, appellants contend here, in material substance, this: 'There was sufficient evidence before the jury to raise all the issues-of-fact submitted to it, and to sustain its verdict in favor of the Appellants upon each and all of them.'
In other words, appellants urge that the 'restrictions' against the property of the appellees, as alleged by them, and found by the jury to have existed, forbade the erection and maintenance by the appellees of the business-building upon their property, which the trial court should have decreed accordingly.
Whereas the appellees, upon their part, reply in a number of counter-points, the first three of which go to the heart of the case, as contended for by them, in substance as follows:
'(1) As a matter of law, there was no general plan, or scheme, for the overall development of properties in the so-called 'country club district' of Park Place, in versal and did not impose mutual and reciprocal burdens on all properties similarly situated;
'(2) If any general plan or scheme was adopted as to 'country club district,' of Park Place, the first lots sold were conveyed with the restrictions expiring twenty-five years after January 1, 1924, and such general plan or scheme, if any there was, was for the expiration of such restrictions twenty-five years after January 1, 1924, to-wit, on January 1, 1949;
'(3) There was no general plan or scheme for the overall development of properties in Park Place, as shown by the map...
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...For this proposition the appellants rely on the case of Curlee v. Walker, 1922, 112 Tex. 40, 244 S.W. 497, and Gray v. Lewis, Tex.Civ.App.1951, 241 S.W.2d 313, 316, ref., n. r. e. In Gray v. Lewis, this Court '* * * on the other hand, the entire property--called generally 'Park Place'--was ......
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