Watkins v. Davis

• Decision Date: 18 April 1884
• Docket Number: Case No. 4762.
• Citation: Watkins v. Davis, 61 Tex. 414 (Tex. 1884)
• Parties: MARGARET WATKINS v. J. B. DAVIS.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

61 Tex. 414

MARGARET WATKINS

v.J. B. DAVIS.

Case No. 4762.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Apr. 18, 1884.

APPEAL from Dallas. Tried below before the Hon. Geo. N. Aldredge.

March 11, 1881, appellee Davis brought this suit of trespass to try title to recover one and one-half acres of land described in the petition, claiming the same through a judgment rendered in a justice court against appellant November 29, 1880, in favor of one Tice, and execution, levy, sale and purchase by virtue thereof.

Appellant claimed that the property was her homestead and exempt from forced sale; and further, that she was not in fact served with citation, and had no other notice of the pendency of the suit. Verdict and judgment for appellee.

By the assignment of errors it was claimed that the court erred in excluding the evidence offered for the purpose of impeaching the judgment of the justice of the peace; also in refusing to submit to the jury the issue as to the homestead rights of appellant.

Thompson & Clint, for appellant.

Stemmons & Field, for appellee.

WATTS, J. COM. APP.

As now organized all of our courts are limited in their respective jurisdiction as to the subject matter upon which they may each adjudicate, as well as to the division of judicial powers among them. Still they were all created and their respective judicial powers apportioned by the constitution. And, while acting within the scope of the jurisdiction thus conferred, they cannot be considered strictly as inferior courts of special jurisdiction, in favor of whose proceedings no presumptions of regularity will be indulged. Guilford v. Love, 49 Tex., 715.

However, that appellant was duly served with citation in the justice's court is made to affirmatively appear from the record and papers in that case. Therefore the judgment therein rendered against her would not be subject to collateral attack, upon the ground that the record was false, and in fact no service was had; and especially without showing that appellee was chargeable with notice of that fact before he purchased the land by virtue of that judgment. Murchison v. White, 54 Tex., 81. Hence, we are of the opinion that the court did not err in excluding the evidence offered for the purpose of impeaching the judgment of the justice of the peace.

The other assignments of error, when considered together, present the question as to whether or not the land in controversy was, at the time of the levy and sale, protected by the constitution as the homestead of the appellant. It seems that at the time her husband died, and for some time prior thereto, they were occupying a lot in the city of Dallas as their homestead; they had no children, and the family consisted of the two; after the husband's death, she being old, infirm and barely able to make a support for herself, continued to occupy the place until it was about to be sold for the accumulated taxes thereon, and which she was not able to pay. For the purpose of saving the property from tax sale, and with the intention of purchasing the land in controversy with the proceeds for a homestead, she sold and conveyed the city homestead, and, with the proceeds arising therefrom, she purchased that in controversy, and moved upon, and was occupying, the same as a homestead at the time of the levy and sale at which appellee purchased.

It is well settled that as between appellant and her creditors, the homestead upon which she and her husband were residing...