Miers v. Housing Authority of City of Dallas

• Decision Date: 31 March 1954
• Docket Number: No. A-4510,A-4510
• Citation: 266 S.W.2d 842,153 Tex. 236
• Parties: MIERS v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF CITY OF DALLAS.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 842

266 S.W.2d 842

153 Tex. 236

MIERS v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF CITY OF DALLAS.

No. A-4510.

Supreme Court of Texas.

March 31, 1954.

Nathan Rachael, Dallas, for appellant.

Scurry, Scurry & Pace, Dallas, for appellee.

GARWOOD, Justice.

The questions certified by the El Paso Court of Civil Appeals (which has the case by transfer from the Dallas court), are 'First: Did we err in holding that the description in the condemnor's statement filed with the County Court was too indefinite to confer jurisdiction on that court to render a judgment in a condemnation proceeding?

'If the foregoing question is answered in the affirmative, then we further certify the following question:

'Should the judgment of the trial court be reformed so as to eliminate therefrom that portion of the description

"* * * and all adjoining and contiguous property owned or claimed by said defendants."

The explanatory portion of the certificate reads:

'The above styled and numbered cause is pending before us on appellee's second motion for rehearing. The suit was a condemnation suit brought by the Housing Authority of the City of Dallas to condemn certain land of appellant. The land was described as:

"* * * the following described property situated within the corporate limits of the City of Dallas, Dallas County, Texas, and being more particularly described as follows, to-wit: Situated in Dallas County, Texas, and being Lots 1 and 2, Block 8 of Bonita Plaza, an Addition to the City of Dallas, Texas, according to the Map or Plat thereof recorded in Vol. 8, page 146, MRDCT, and all adjoining and contiguous property owned or claimed by said defendants.'

'In our original opinion and on appellee's first motion for rehearing we held that the description was too indefinite to confer jurisdiction on the trial court and reversed the judgment of the trial court and ordered the condemnation proceedings dismissed. We are not unmindful of the policy of the Supreme Court that it will not entertain a certificate where a writ of error lies from the decision of a court of civil appeals. However in the case our decision is in direct conflict with the decision of the Court of Civil Appeals for the Fifth Supreme Judicial District at Dallas, (Loumparoff v. Housing Authority of City of Dallas, 261 S.W.2d 224) on the question on which our decision is based. Also there is a great urgency that a final judgment be obtained because the Housing Authority is now building on property condemned with similar description, and if our decision is correct then of course all building on such property would be immediately stopped.'

To the foregoing it should doubtless be added: The description in question appears in the 'statement in writing' whereby the condemnation was begun (Art. 3264, Vernon's Tex.Civ.Stats.Ann.) in the award of the Special Commissioners (who fixed the damages of the appellant-condemnee at approximately $1800) and in the judgment of the County Court at Law No. 1 of Dallas County (which in substance sustained the action of the Commissioners) following recourse thereto by the appellant-condemnee. The written objections of the latter to the award of the Commissioners affirmatively asserted jurisdiction in the County Court at Law No. 1 and complained of the award upon the sole ground that the amount was inadequate. At the trial, the only evidence as to value, or indeed ownership, was with reference to 'Lots 1 and 2,' there being no mention in the proof of any 'adjoining and contiguous property owned or claimed by said defendants.' The single jury issue submitted (on value) was in terms of 'the subject property' and resulted in an answer of $1800. The appellant-condemnee took no part in the trial in person or otherwise but filed unsuccessful motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for new trial, raising the description question among others.

The circumstances stated in the certificate, together with the novelty of the points involved, justify the exercise of our discretionary jurisdiction to answer the questions certified rather than require their presentment by application for writ of error. See Rule 461, Tex.R.Civ.Proc.; Weaver v. Board of Trustees of Wilson Independent School District, 143 Tex. 152, 183 S.W.2d 443.

We answer the first question affirmatively, that is, to the effect that the description used in the statement of the appellee-condemnor to the commissioners and the trial court was adequate to support jurisdiction of the latter.

The point of description is, of course, jurisdictional, and although condemnation is not consensual in nature, the test of what constitutes adequacy of description is, generally speaking, the same as with consensual transfers such as a deed. Parker v. Fort Worth & Denver City Ry. Co., 84 Tex. 333, 19 S.W. 518; Wooten v. State, 142 Tex. 238, 177 S.W.2d 56.

As an original proposition, there might have been some logical difficulty in sustaining a description like 'all of the land owned or claimed by this grantor in the X survey of Y County, Texas,' under our basic rules which purport to require identification of the land either by the instrument in question or some equally certain extrinsic matter to which that instrument gives the key. What the grantor actually 'claims' and, for that matter, what he actually 'owns' (for example, a tract which he has long ceased to occupy after perfecting limitation title) would seem in the last analysis to be identification by something far less certain than a collateral writing or fact of public notoriety. But our...