Village Mills Co. v. Houston Oil Co. of Texas

• Decision Date: 30 January 1916
• Docket Number: (No. 42.)
• Citation: 186 S.W. 785
• Parties: VILLAGE MILLS CO. v. HOUSTON OIL CO. OF TEXAS et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 785

186 S.W. 785

VILLAGE MILLS CO. v. HOUSTON OIL CO. OF TEXAS et al.

(No. 42.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Beaumont.

January 30, 1916.

On Motion for Rehearing, April 15, 1916.

On Second Motion for Rehearing, May 25, 1916.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Appeal from District Court, Hardin County; J. Llewellyn, Judge.

Action by the Houston Oil Company of Texas against the Village Mills Company and others. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant Village Mills Company appeals. Certified to Supreme Court.

W. D. Gordon, Thos. J. Baten, H. M. Whitaker, E. E. Easterling, and Hightower, Orgain & Butler, all of Beaumont, for appellant. D. F. Singleton, of Kountz, J. F. Lanier, of Beaumont, Parker & Kennerly, of Houston, and H. O. Head, of Sherman, for appellees.

CONLEY, C. J.

This was an action of trespass to try title, instituted by Houston Oil Company of Texas against the Village Mills Company, in which the D. C. Montgomery league of land in Hardin county was involved. The appellant, by cross-action, brought in the Maryland Trust Company, alleging that it was asserting some sort of lien or claim on the land by reason of a deed of trust executed for its benefit by the Houston Oil Company. In addition to the plea of not guilty, the appellant also answered that it had matured title under the three, five, and ten year statutes of limitation. The Houston Oil Company also alleged in its petition that, in addition to holding the fee-simple title to the land, it had acquired a good and perfect title under the three, five, and ten year statutes of limitation. After the evidence for both sides had been submitted, the court gave a peremptory instruction to the jury to render a verdict for appellees, which was done, and the judgment entered accordingly, from which the appellant has perfected an appeal.

Appellee Houston Oil Company's title is deraigned as follows: Mexican government to D. C. Montgomery, one league of land August 29, 1835; D. C. Montgomery to Samuel Moore, warranty deed June 5, 1838; Samuel Moore, by attorney, to Mary E. Brown, August 10, 1849; Mary Brown Frazier and husband to T. J. Word, deed dated January 19, 1855; T. J. Word to George F. Moore, December 8, 1858; George F. Moore to Susan B. Moore, December 7, 1860; T. J. Word to Susan B. Moore, partition deed July 5, 1866; Susan B. Moore and George F. Moore to John P. Irvin, August 4, 1881; John P. Irvin to Texas Pine Land Association, December 11, 1891; Texas Pine Land Association, by its trustees, to Houston Oil Company of Texas, special warranty deed dated July 31, 1901, and also by deed of date December 5, 1914.

Appellant filed an affidavit of forgery against the deed from D. C. Montgomery to Samuel Moore, of date June 5, 1838. Appellant's record title shows that it claims to have the fee in the league of land under the following instruments: Mexican government to D. C. Montgomery, August 29, 1835; D. C. Montgomery to Arthur Henry, deed January 27, 1836; Arthur Henry to Samuel Beresford, February 27, 1845; heirs of Samuel Beresford to W. W. Clippinger, power of attorney February 19, 1901; heirs of Samuel Beresford, by attorney, to Brackin and Hooks, by deed dated March 28, 1914; Hooks and Brackin to Village Mills Company, April 7, 1914.

The records and briefs are voluminous, and many assignments of error are presented, but the judgment of the lower court must be sustained, unless three contentions urged by the appellant can be successfully maintained, viz.:

First. That the judgment of the United States Circuit Court at Beaumont in November, 1903, against the Beresfords, appellant's predecessors in title, was not valid and binding; that judgment having been interposed by appellees as an estoppel in this suit against the appellant's assertion of title to the land in question.

Second. That the record in the case required a submission to the jury of the question of forgery of the deed from Montgomery to Moore, against which an affidavit of forgery had been filed.

Third. That neither the three, five, or ten year statutes of limitation were established by the uncontroverted testimony in favor of appellees and those through and under whom they claim.

We will therefore consider these questions in the order in which they are stated, rather than follow the numerical assignment of them as found in the briefs.

On November 11, 1901, Richard Beresford and others, the heirs of Samuel Beresford, alleging themselves to be citizens of the states of Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, through their attorney, W. W. Clippinger, and other counsel, filed in the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Texas, at Beaumont, suit No. C. L. 94, styled Richard Beresford et al. v. Texas Pine Land Association, wherein the plaintiffs in said suit were alleged to be the owners in fee simple and entitled to the possession of the D. C. Montgomery league in Hardin county, Tex., the same land which is here involved, such suit being an action in trespass to try title, and, among other things, the petition contained the following language:

"Complaining of the Texas Pine Land Association, which is a joint-stock association, having its principal office in Houston, Harris county, Tex., and its trustees, Clerendon Harris, who resides in Tyler county, Tex., and Thomas S. Nelson, Horatio R. Fletcher, and Francis Peabody, Jr., the last-named three trustees being residents of Suffolk county, Mass," etc.

Also such petition contained the following allegation:

"As to said Texas Pine Land Association, plaintiff alleges that service on the above-named three trustees is sufficient; that plaintiff knows of no other shareholders or persons interested in or owning any interest in said Texas Pine Land Association, save and except the above-named trustees."

The rest of the petition was in ordinary form of trespass to try title.

The Texas Pine Land Association and the trustees of the Texas Pine Land Association, except Clerendon Harris, who was dismissed from the suit, answered in said cause, and excepted to plaintiff's petition generally and on the ground of want of jurisdiction, entering also the ordinary plea of not guilty and the plea of general denial, and pleas of limitation under the three, five, and ten year statutes. This answer was filed August 26, 1902. The exceptions to the jurisdiction and otherwise were not sustained, and, the cause coming on for trial, all the defendants were dismissed except the Texas Pine Land Association and its trustees, Thomas S. Nelson, Horatio R. Fletcher, and Francis Peabody, Jr., and judgment was rendered on November 26, 1903, that plaintiffs take nothing by their suit, and judgment was also rendered that the defendants recover from the plaintiffs all costs. A certified copy of this judgment was filed in Hardin County, Tex., January, 1906.

Appellant's ninth and tenth assignments of error attack the action of the court in allowing the introduction of the pleadings and the judgment in the federal suit, for the purpose of proving an estoppel in this cause, for the following reasons, to wit:

(a) The federal court was without jurisdiction, and the proceedings were void.

(b) The record affirmatively shows that the Texas Pine Land Association and its trustees had previous to the institution of the suit, to wit, on July 31, 1901, conveyed the entire interest and estate that they had in the land in controversy to the Houston Oil Company of Texas, whereas the suit referred to was instituted on the 11th day of November, 1901, at a time when the Texas Pine Land Association had no interest whatever in said land.

(c) Not necessary to consider under the disposition we make of the case.

(d) Because there was no pleading of estoppel or res adjudicata by plaintiff as the basis for the introduction of any such evidence.

The first proposition urged under these two assignments is, in substance, that the defendant in that suit, being a joint-stock association, was a mere partnership, and therefore not a citizen of the United States, within the meaning of the statutes of the United States imposing jurisdiction upon the federal court by reason of diversity of citizenship, and on this account the federal court at Beaumont did not have jurisdiction of the suit brought by said plaintiffs, although citizens of other states, and that the judgment rendered in said cause was therefore a nullity, and could be collaterally impeached whenever and wherever it was brought in question.

The federal courts of the United States are courts of limited jurisdiction, and can only exercise their powers within prescribed limits. One of the grounds of jurisdiction of that court, and that upon which its action was invoked in the case of Beresford v. Texas Pine Land Association, supra, was diversity of citizenship of the parties to that action.

It is now the settled rule, under the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, that a joint-stock association cannot be a "citizen," within the meaning of the statutes regulating jurisdiction of the federal court.

In the case of Chapman v. Barney, 129 U. S. 677, 9 Sup. Ct. 426, 32 L. Ed. 800, that court said:

"On looking into the record we find no satisfactory showing as to the citizenship of the plaintiff. The allegation of the amended petition is, that the United States Express Company is a joint-stock company organized under a law of the state of New York, and is a citizen of that state. But the express company cannot be a citizen of New York, within the meaning of the statutes regulating jurisdiction, unless it be a corporation. The allegation that the company was organized under the laws of New York is not an allegation that it is a corporation. In fact, the allegation is that the company is not a corporation, but a joint-stock company—that is, a mere partnership. And, although it may be authorized by the laws of the state of New York to bring suit in the name of its president, that fact cannot give the company power,...