Hargrave v. Simpson
| Decision Date | 01 January 1860 |
| Citation | 25 Tex. 396 |
| Parties | HARGRAVE v. SIMPSON. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
The district court has exclusive original jurisdiction for the enforcement of liens.
In a suit upon a note originally for a sum exceeding one hundred dollars, and to enforce the vendor's lien, where the petition showed that the note was reduced by payment to an amount below that sum, and it only appeared inferentially that the land liable to the vendor's lien was worth more than one hundred dollars, it was held that the district court had jurisdiction to entertain the suit, and to afford all the necessary remedies, based upon its own equity jurisdiction and the restricted powers of the other courts. 7 Tex. 235;22 Tex. 7.
APPEAL from Hopkins. Tried below before the Hon. W. S. Todd.
This is a suit upon a note for $233, and to enforce the vendor's lien upon sixty acres of land for which the note was given. The petition admits a payment on the note of an amount which reduces the debt below the sum of one hundred dollars; and for this the court below sustained a plea to the jurisdiction, and dismissed the suit. The correctness of this decision is the only question in the case.
The jurisdiction of the district court was sustained in a suit to foreclose a mortgage upon personal property, alleged to be of the value of one hundred and fifty dollars, given to secure the payment of seventy-five dollars. Marshall v. Taylor, 7 Tex. 235. Following this precedent, this court sustained the jurisdiction of the district court in a suit to enforce a vendor's lien, where the land was alleged to be worth over one hundred dollars, but the amount of the demand was less. It was then regarded that an important consideration in favor of the jurisdiction was that the justice's court was not competent to furnish an adequate remedy by the enforcement of the vendor's lien, and that the district court alone, possessing full equity powers, could do so. Lane v. Howard, 22 Tex. 7.
In this case the value of the land is not shown, otherwise than the amount agreed to be paid for it was several hundred dollars. It does thus appear that the parties regarded and treated the land as worth more than one hundred dollars.
The note upon which suit has been brought is for an amount over one hundred dollars, and under the statute the court could render a judgment upon it, although reduced by payment to an amount under one hundred dollars. O. & W. Dig. art. 360. Here the payment is admitted in the...
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Lawson v. Lynch
...mortgage as the debt. The same rule was recognized in Lane v. Howard, 22 Tex. 7, though the question was not the same, and in Hargrave v. Simpson, 25 Tex. 396, the two prior cases were followed, Judge Roberts remarking: "It is not proposed now to enter into an original investigation of the ......
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Edwards v. Mayes
...was not alleged, unless the allegation of the price for which it was sold was tantamount to an allegation of its value. Hargrave v. Simpson, 25 Tex. 396. But should the court, because of the failure to allege the value of the property, have refused to render any judgment at all, or have ref......