Rogers v. Frost's Adm'r.

• Decision Date: 01 January 1855
• Citation: 14 Tex. 267
• Parties: ROGERS, ADM'R, AND OTHERS v. FROST'S ADM'R.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

14 Tex. 267

ROGERS, ADM'R, AND OTHERS

v.FROST'S ADM'R.

Supreme Court of Texas.

1855.

Where one purporting to act as the attorney for another executes a deed in his own name, the deed will be sustained if the person executing had authority to make a proper deed.

Appeal from Anderson. The deed from Cravens to Hanks was as follows, to wit: Know all men, &c., that I, John E. Cravens, attorney in fact for George Dwight, of the county of Houston, have this day, for and in consideration of the sum of two hundred dollars to me in hand paid, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, the same having been paid to my principal, bargained &c., &c., & c., to have and to hold said land free from the claim of myself, my heirs and assigns, forever, to him, the said George W. Hanks, his heirs and assigns, forever. In testimony whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this the 29th December, A. D. 1851.

JOHN E. CRAVENS. [L. S.]

G. F. Moore, for appellant Rogers. Though it is perhaps almost universally held that unless a deed is executed in the name of the principal it will not vest the legal title in the purchaser, yet this will be found to be the rule at law; and where the form of action required a legal title to support it while in equity, (which would be sufficient under our system to sustain our answer,) it would entitle the purchaser to relief by having the legal title decreed to him. (1 Story's Eq., secs. 171, 172, 173; 2 Sugd. Vend., p. 512, 513, 514; Story on Agency, secs. 148, 160; Terly v. Grigsby, 9 Leigh, 378; McNaughten v. Patridge, 11 Ohio (Stanton's) R., 223; and particularly Edmondson v. Orr, 12 Smedes & Marsh., 541; Dart on Vendors, 394, and notes and authorities there referred to; Sugd. on Powers, 100, 135, 142, and 517; 4 Kent's Comm., 344; Hill on Trustees, 700; Leading Cases in Equity, p., 211 et seq., and particularly 218.)

LIPSCOMB, J.

This suit was brought by the administrator of Frost to set aside a certain deed by Frost and wife to Dwight and Slaughter. Rogers, the administrator of Hanks, on his application to the court, was permitted to intervene, and he set up the right of his intestate to a portion of the land purchased by his intestate from Dwight, without notice that the sale of the land to Dwight and Slaughter had been rescinded; and he showed title under a conveyance made by Cravens, purporting to act as attorney for Dwight, but executing it in his own name. The claim of intervention was demurred to by the...