Lloyd v. Christian
| Decision Date | 28 October 1932 |
| Docket Number | No. 9769.,9769. |
| Citation | 54 S.W.2d 197 |
| Parties | LLOYD v. CHRISTIAN. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Harris County; Allen B. Hannay, Judge.
Suit by Mrs. Stella Jones Christian, independent executrix, etc., against D. C. Lloyd and another. Judgment for plaintiff, and named defendant appeals.
Reversed and rendered.
L. A. Kottwitz and A. B. Wilson, both of Houston, for appellant.
In this cause appellant, D. C. Lloyd, challenges a judgment of the court below against himself and his mother, Mrs. N. E. Lloyd, in favor of the appellee for the cancellation of a deed from the mother to the son for four 40-acre tracts of land in Harris county, dated November 26, 1929, upon a finding that the conveyance had been made with a view and intent to hinder, delay, and defraud the grantor's creditors—a money recovery in the sum of $2,420.45 against Mrs. Lloyd alone upon her unsecured individual note to the appellee having been also awarded, and an attachment writ against the land having been sued out pending the trial.
Trial was before the court without a jury; findings of fact and law were filed, in which it was recited that the conveyance of the land, aggregating 160 acres, had been made for the stated consideration of $20,010, of which $10 was to be in cash, the remaining $20,000 being evidenced by a promissory note from the son to his mother, due two years after date; that the conveyance was a violation of the statute, R. S. article 3996, for the reason already stated, Mrs. Lloyd being insolvent at the time, having no other property in the state sufficient to pay her debts, owing the appellee the debt sued upon, as well as other parties at the time, which facts the appellant then knew; that no part of the $20,000 note had ever been paid, nor any ability upon the maker's part to pay it within the two years being shown, and, further, that both in 1919 and 1929 Mrs. Lloyd had signed and acknowledged, in connection with loans upon the same property from the Federal Land Bank and the Farm Loan Association in Pasadena, Tex., statements to the effect that the land so conveyed to her son did not on those dates constitute her homestead, the latter of these declarations having been made only a few days before the institution of this suit.
To these summarized findings there were added conclusions of law, finding Mrs. Lloyd to be indebted to the appellee in the amount of the money recovery stated, together with these two concluding paragraphs:
On the appeal the judgment so rendered, as well as the findings of both fact and law upon which it had been grounded, are attacked on the ground that they were without evidence to support them, in that the undisputed testimony shows that the property thereby conveyed at the date of the deed constituted the homestead of Mrs. Lloyd and her family, by reason of which she had the right to so convey it, and that the transaction in the circumstances could not be deemed fraudulent in law.
After a careful examination of the record, we conclude this position must be sustained.
The four tracts of land were not in a town or city, being located nearby but not in the small village of Alief in Harris county, were contiguous, were alleged to constitute the homestead, within the meaning of R. S. articles 3832, 3833, of Mrs. Lloyd and her family, which at the date of the conveyance in question consisted of herself (she being a widow) and one minor child, and the undisputed proof conclusively showed that they had all been used, occupied, cultivated, and enjoyed as such homestead continuously for 20 years or more prior to and at the time of her deed, with the exception of about one year along about 1919 or 1920, when Mrs. Lloyd temporarily sojourned in the city of Houston for the purpose of having her children attend school there; indeed, the evidence is so conclusive and overwhelming to this effect that it is not deemed essential that it be even summarized here, neighbors, old friends, and other witnesses, who had direct and personal knowledge of such facts, appearing and fully testifying to them.
It seems the finding of fact to the contrary,...
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Biglane v. Rawls
...part would have disclosed the homestead character of the property.' See also the following cases to the same effect: Lloyd v. Christian, 54 S.W.2d 197 (Tex.Civ.App.1932); Weiser v. Travis Cotton Seed Products Co., 63 S.W.2d 246 (Tex.Civ.App.1933); Balcomb v. Vasquez, 241 S.W.2d 650 (Tex.Civ......