Mason v. Crump

• Decision Date: 16 January 1953
• Docket Number: No. 15373,15373
• Parties: MASON et al. v. CRUMP et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 831

254 S.W.2d 831

MASON et al. v. CRUMP et al.

No. 15373.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Fort Worth.

Jan. 16, 1953.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 13, 1953.

Jas. D. Buster, of Sherman, for appellants.

Cecil Murphy, of Gainsville, for appellees.

RENFRO, Justice.

Suit was brought by Edna Mason, Rhoda Sheegog, and Dora Mitchell, children of R. M. Crump by his first marriage, against their brother, Marvin Crump, and their half sisters and brother, May Walker, Clara Crump, and Raymond Crump, children of the second marriage of their father, and R. M. Crump for partition of certain described land in Cooke County, Texas. Marvin Crump defaulted. The other defendants denied any ownership or interest of plaintiffs in the land, and by cross-action asserted the land was purchased during the second marriage of R. M. Crump and was community property of said marriage.

Trial was to the court without a jury and judgment rendered that plaintiffs take nothing.

Appellants take the position the judgment is contrary to the evidence.

Crump's first wife, mother of appellants, died intestate on May 16, 1895. The said Crump married Elvie Crump on February 27, 1896; she died intestate on January 1, 1948.

A 60.4-acre tract of land was acquired by Crump on February 21, 1901, for a recited consideration of $400 cash and $200 evidence by vendor's lien notes; a 20-acre tract on November 15, 1905, for a recited consideration of $100 cash and the execution of a $100 vendor's lien note; and a 25-acre tract on September 25, 1917, for a recited consideration of $100 cash and $300 in vendor's lien notes. It is seen that the three separate tracts were acquired five, ten and twenty years respectively after Crump's marriage to Elvie, his second wife.

The appellants Mrs. Sheegog and Mrs. Mitchell attempted to prove that certain property belonging to the community estate of Crump and his first wife was used as part payment on the property herein involved.

No evidence whatsoever was introduced showing any community property of the first marriage going into the purchase of the last two tracts of land hereinabove mentioned. Clearly the trial court was correct in denying them any interest in said two tracts of land.

In an effort to prove that part of the purchase price for the 60.4-acre tract of land was out of the community funds of Crump and his first wife, the witnesses testified to a confusing number of horse, mule, cattle and real estate trades, beginning in Missouri and extending through a period of several years when the Crump family lived first in Plainview, Texas, then in the Oklahoma Territory, and finally in Cooke County, Texas. Crump was an extensive trader in livestock. On witness finally stated that two cows belonging to the community estate of her father and mother went into the purchase price of the 60.4-acre tract, and another witness that one cow went into the purchase price. Neither witness attempted to place any value on such stock.

As stated above, the mother of appellants died in 1895. So the various livestock trades, etc., related by them occurred more than fifty years ago and prior to the time...