Mayes v. Manning

• Decision Date: 15 February 1889
• Citation: 11 S.W. 136
• Parties: MAYES <I>v.</I> MANNING <I>et al.</I>
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

11 S.W. 136

MAYESv.

MANNING et al.

Supreme Court of Texas.

February 15, 1889.

Appeal from district court, Freestone county.

George A. Bell and Anderson & Gardiner, for appellant. Kirven, Gardner & Etheridge, for appellees.

HENRY, J.

This is an action of trespass to try title, commenced on the 6th day of June, 1887, by plaintiff against his father's administrator, widow, and children by her, to recover 400 acres of land. Defendants answered by plea of not guilty, and 10 years' statute of limitation. The case was tried without a jury, and judgment rendered in favor of plaintiff for one-half, and for the defendants for the other half, of the land. The record contains the judge's conclusions of fact, from which it appears: T. G. Mayes and Catherine G. Boyd were married in Alabama in 1842, and plaintiff, the only child of the marriage, was born in 1846. Plaintiff's father and mother moved to Texas in 1852, and in 1853 settled on the land in controversy. In 1853, T. G. Mayes, the father of plaintiff, purchased the land; paying for it with money then advanced his wife by her father, and taking the deed for it in his own name. The wife, Catherine Mayes, died shortly after, in 1853. T. G. Mayes married again, in 1854, and continuously resided on the land until his death, in 1886. Plaintiff knew how the land was purchased and paid for as early as 1874, and in that year was threatening to sue his father for it. T. G. Mayes always admitted his son's title to half of the land, but openly and positively denied his having any interest in the other half; always up to the time of his death asserting his own title to the other half. The residence of T. G. Mayes and about 35 acres of cultivated land were on the land in controversy; the remainder of his homestead was on a different tract owned by him. Plaintiff at no time claimed less than the whole of the 400 acres, and declared to T. G. Mayes and others that he would not institute suit for the land during the life-time of his father. T. G. Mayes sold 60 acres of the tract, with the consent of his son, (plaintiff.) The trial judge's conclusions of law upon said facts were: (1) That the legal title was in T. G. Mayes, and a resulting trust in his first wife, which vested at her death in plaintiff; (2) that the statute of limitations began to run against plaintiff as to half of the land from the time he reached his majority, and had barred him before he instituted this suit.

Appellant's assignments of errors are, substantially: (1) The court erred in its conclusions of fact as to the time when T. G. Mayes first repudiated the trust, as well as to the time when plaintiff first had knowledge of it; (2) that the court erred in concluding that plaintiff was barred of his right to recover half of the land by limitation.

While the evidence is neither full nor explicit on the point, we think it fairly conduces to establish the conclusion of the judge as to the dates of the repudiation of the trust, and of plaintiff's knowledge thereof. The evidence is of the same character and more satisfactory than that by which plaintiff establishes the fact that there was a resulting trust at all. If...