Scates v. Fohn

• Decision Date: 07 November 1900
• Citation: 59 S.W. 837
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals
• Parties: SCATES et al. v. FOHN et al.

59 S.W. 837

SCATES et al. v. FOHN et al.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

November 7, 1900.

Appeal from district court, Medina county; I. L. Martin, Judge.

Action by J. R. Scates and others against Joseph Fohn and others. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed. On motion for rehearing. Reversed.

V. H. Blocker and Geo. Powell, for appellants. Ed De Montel, J. W. Baker, and Floyd McGown, for appellees.

JAMES, C. J.

The action was trespass to try title by appellants against appellees to recover the south one-half of survey 161, patented to John Ney. The evidence is that J. R. Scates was the common source of title. Plaintiffs placed in evidence deeds to J. R. Scates from and under one A. G. Clark. Defendants placed in evidence the patent to John Ney, dated in 1855; deed from John Ney to H. Castro, dated in 1851; a sheriff's deed purporting to convey the survey in question to John H. Illies, in 1853, under an order of foreclosure sale issued by reason of a decree in favor of Illies against Castro, which decree was, in 1854, on writ of error, vacated, and held for naught, by the supreme court, so far as concerned certain surveys, — among them the one in question; also deeds showing that A. G. Clark acquired the land by sundry mesne conveyances from Illies. Plaintiffs then introduced a deed from Lorenzo Castro to A. G. Clark, dated February 1, 1882, conveying the survey in question. (We may here dispose of the effect of this last-named deed by stating that the evidence fails to show that Lorenzo Castro was an heir of Henry Castro when he executed it, in this: that there was no testimony as to the time Henry Castro died, and no facts or circumstances which go to show that he was then dead. The court found as a fact that Lorenzo Castro was a son of Henry Castro, but finds no further.) As to the effect of the annulled decree upon the title of Scates, the common source, it is, in effect, contended by appellants that there is a presumption in favor of the common source of title that the title of Henry Castro had been in some way acquired by the common source; or, as expressed in appellants' first proposition: "The presumption is not overcome by defendants' showing a broken link in the chain of title between the common source and the sovereignty of the soil, there being no proof that the common source had not acquired and did not own the land at the trial." The cases relied on by both litigants are Rice v. Railway Co., 87 Tex. 93, 26 S. W. 1047, and Ferguson v. Ricketts, 93 Tex. 565, 57 S. W. 19. The apparent connection of the common source with the government was shown to not exist in fact, for the reason that a necessary link therein had been judicially declared void; and it is therefore affirmatively made to appear that Henry Castro had title to the land, but that his title had been withdrawn and isolated by adjudication from the chain of title to the common source. See Adams v. Odom, 74 Tex. 206, 12 S. W. 34. This state of facts the evidence shows, more than that the title went into Henry Castro. Presumptions are not indulged against evidence. There can be no presumption that Henry Castro reconveyed this land to the person who had purchased it under a judgment against him, which judgment Castro afterwards caused to be annulled. There is no gap in the chain of title from the state to Scates left unexplained. The testimony was made to show a regular chain, but further showed that one of the links had been destroyed; thus showing not only that the title was in Castro, but negativing that Castro's title ever had passed into the chain of title from the state to Scates. Hence we conclude that title in plaintiffs was disproved, and the court did not err in this respect.

The judgment of the court was against plaintiffs on the issue of a title by limitations, and a reading of the testimony satisfies us that this was not contrary to the evidence. We construe the finding of the court as follows, "I find as a conclusion of fact that the statute of limitations does not enter in this case for either plaintiffs or d...