Martin v. Amerman

• Decision Date: 13 February 2004
• Docket Number: No. 02-0731.,02-0731.
• Citation: 133 S.W.3d 262
• Parties: Kirk E. MARTIN and Suzanne K. Martin, Petitioners, v. William M. AMERMAN and Carolyn Frances Amerman, Respondents.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

133 S.W.3d 262

Kirk E. MARTIN and Suzanne K. Martin, Petitioners, v. William M. AMERMAN and Carolyn Frances Amerman, Respondents.

No. 02-0731.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued October 1, 2003.

Decided February 13, 2004.

Cathy J. Sheehan, Plunkett & Gibson, Inc., San Antonio, for Amicus Curiae.

Walter D. Snider, Snider & Morgan, L.L.P., Beaumont, for Petitioner.

Richard N. Evans, J. Mitchell Smith, Germer Gertz, L.L.P., Beaumont, for Respondent.

Justice O'NEILL delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case we must decide whether a trespass-to-try-title action is the exclusive means to resolve a dispute between neighbors over the proper location of a boundary line separating their properties, or whether a declaratory judgment action is also an appropriate way. We hold that the Texas trespass-to-try-title statute governs the parties' substantive rights in this boundary dispute and that they may not proceed under the Texas Declaratory Judgments Act to recover attorney's fees. Accordingly, we affirm the court of appeals' judgment. 83 S.W.3d 858.

I

This dispute involves locating the proper boundary line between two residential properties in Beaumont, Texas. In 1987, Kirk and Suzanne Martin purchased a home located on a 2.005-acre tract of land. Some six years later, the Martins erected a chain-link fence along what they believed to be their property's eastern boundary next to a wooded area. In 1997, William and Carolyn Amerman purchased their home on a 1.255-acre tract located to the east and around the corner from the Martins. The disputed boundary line forms the eastern edge of the Martin tract and the western edge of the Amerman tract. In 1998, the Amermans tore down the Martins' fence, believing that it illegally encroached on their property.

Although unable to agree on the boundary's location, the parties do agree that their respective chains of title do not conflict. All of the Martin acreage derives from the Crowell/Nelson grant and all of the Amerman acreage derives from the DeVoss/Pye grant. The dispute in this case arises from two conflicting surveys. The Martins' surveyor, Mark Whiteley, surveyed the Martin property in 1993 and set the northeast corner at a one-and-one-half-inch pipe identified in previous surveys as the proper corner location. Gilbert Johnston, the Amerman's surveyor, conducted his survey of the Amerman tract three years later and placed its northwest corner at a five-eighth-inch rod. The surveyors' differing placement of these corners causes the thirty-foot overlap at issue in this case.

The Martins filed suit seeking a judgment declaring the proper boundary line and granting permanent injunctive relief. They also alleged trespass and wrongful encroachment, adverse possession, trespass to try title, boundary by recognition and acquiescence, and an action to quiet title, but ultimately nonsuited all claims except those for declaratory judgment and to remove the cloud on their title caused by the recorded Johnston survey. The Amermans filed a counterclaim for trespass to try title and also sought injunctive relief. Because the parties agreed that ownership of the disputed thirty-foot strip of land depended upon determining the boundary's proper location on the ground, the case was submitted to the jury solely as a boundary dispute. After hearing testimony about survey methods and the priority placed on different monuments, the jury found that the Martins' surveyor properly placed the boundary and that the Amermans' recorded survey placed a cloud on the Martins' title. The trial court rendered judgment on the jury's verdict and awarded the Martins attorney's fees pursuant to the Texas Declaratory Judgments Act. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 37.009.

The court of appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment in part, but held that, because the boundary dispute involved title to a strip of land, it was in the nature of a trespass-to-try-title action and must be treated as such. 83 S.W.3d at 864. Because the trespass-to-try-title statute does not provide for the recovery of attorney's fees, the court of appeals reversed the Martins' fee award. Id. This holding directly conflicts with Goebel v. Brandley, 76 S.W.3d 652 (Tex.App. Houston [14th Dist.] 2002, no pet.), in which the court held that a suit to declare a boundary's location may properly be brought as a declaratory judgment action. We granted the Martins' petition for review to resolve this conflict among our courts of appeals.

II

The Texas Property Code provides that "[a] trespass to try title action is the method of determining title to lands, tenements, or other real property." Tex. Prop.Code § 22.001. The Texas Declaratory Judgments Act provides that "[a] person interested under a deed ... may have determined any question of construction or validity arising under the instrument ... and obtain a declaration of rights, status, or other legal relations thereunder." TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM.CODE § 37.004(a). The parties disagree about these statutes' application when the sole question before the court involves determining the proper boundary line between adjoining properties.

We have said that boundary disputes may be tried as trespass-to-try-title actions, but not that they must. Hunt v. Heaton, 643 S.W.2d 677, 679 (Tex.1982); Plumb v. Stuessy, 617 S.W.2d 667, 669 (Tex.1981). We have never considered whether a boundary dispute may also be tried as a declaratory judgment action. These two statutory avenues differ significantly in both their proof elements and the relief they afford.

The Declaratory Judgments Act provides an efficient vehicle for parties to seek a declaration of rights under certain instruments, while trespass-to-try-title actions involve detailed pleading and proof requirements. See Tex.R. Civ. P. 783-809. To prevail in a trespass-to-try-title action, a plaintiff must usually (1) prove a regular chain of conveyances from the sovereign, (2) establish superior title out of a common source, (3) prove title by limitations, or (4) prove title by prior possession coupled with proof that possession was not abandoned. Plumb, 617 S.W.2d at 668 (citing Land v. Turner, 377 S.W.2d 181, 183 (Tex.1964)). The pleading rules are detailed and formal, and require a plaintiff to prevail on the superiority of his title, not on the weakness of a defendant's title. Land, 377 S.W.2d at 183.

The trespass-to-try-title statute was originally enacted in 1840 to provide a remedy for resolving title issues. Tex. Prop.Code 22.001(a) ("A trespass to try title action is the method of determining title to lands...."). It also eliminated ejectment actions in Texas, which had traditionally been used to restore possession of property to a person legally entitled to it. See Tex. Prop.Code 22.001(b); see generally 2 Powell on Real Property 246[3] (1991). The statute is typically used to clear problems in chains of title or to recover possession of land unlawfully withheld from a rightful owner. See Standard Oil Co. of Tex. v. Marshall, 265 F.2d 46, 50 (5th Cir.1959); City of El Paso v. Long, 209 S.W.2d 950, 954 (Tex.Civ.App.El Paso 1947, writ ref'd n.r.e.).

The strict pleading and proof requirements applicable to trespass-to-try-title actions have sometimes produced harsh results. See, e.g., Hunt, 643 S.W.2d at 679 (holding that Hunt's failure to timely file his abstract showing chain of title was fatal to the trespass-to-try-title action he pled whether or not the case turned factually on the question of boundary), Id. at 680 (Sondock, J., concurring) (noting the "unnecessary technicalities" of trespass-to-try-title actions). To lessen these harsh effects, the Court has relaxed the trespass-to-try-title actions formal proof requirements when the sole dispute between the parties involves a boundary's location. See Plumb, 617 S.W.2d at 669. In Plumb, we recognized that a boundary dispute may be tried by a statutory action of trespass to try title. Id. (citing Schiele v. Kimball, 113 Tex. 1, 194 S.W. 944 (1917)). In such a case, a recorded deed is sufficient to show an interest in the disputed property without having to prove a formal chain of superior title. See Plumb, 617 S.W.2d at 669; see also Brownlee v. Sexton, 703 S.W.2d 797, 800 (Tex.App. Dallas 1986, writ ref'd n.r.e.); Rocha v. Campos, 574 S.W.2d 233, 235-36 (Tex.Civ.App. Corpus Christi, 1978, no writ). We articulated a test to determine if a case is one of boundary "If there would have been no case but for the question of boundary, then the case is necessarily a boundary case even though it may involve questions of title." Plumb, 617 S.W.2d at 669. We have never indicated, though, that by lessening the trespass-to-try-title actions more formal proof requirements we intended to make boundary disputes a distinct cause of action. It is over this point that the parties disagree.

The Martins argue that this case does not involve a title dispute as contemplated by the trespass-to-try-title statute because the parties stipulated that their respective chains of title do not overlap. The Martins contend that the court is not determining substantive title rights but is merely declaring the boundary's location between adjoining properties. See Goebel, 76 S.W.3d at 656. The Amermans, on the other hand, contend this case is necessarily about title because both parties assert competing claims of ownership to the same thirty-foot strip of land. See Vanzandt v. Holmes, 689 S.W.2d 259, 261-62 (Tex.App.Waco 1985, no writ); Rocha, 574 S.W.2d at 235. To answer this question, we first examine how the distinction between title and boundary disputes arose.

The distinction between formal trespass-to-try-title actions and disputes involving only a boundary determination was initially drawn as a means to determine whether this Court had subject matter jurisdiction over the case. Before 1929, we had no jurisdiction over appeals involving boundary determinations, but did have jurisdiction over appeals...