Watson v. Watson, 7452.
| Decision Date | 28 May 1930 |
| Docket Number | No. 7452.,7452. |
| Parties | WATSON et al. v. WATSON. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Coleman County; M. S. Long, Judge.
Suit by J. C. Watson against C. T. Watson and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal.
Reversed and remanded.
Dibrell & Starnes, of Coleman, for appellants.
Baker & Baker, of Coleman, for appellee.
J. C. Watson sued appellants in trespass to try title to 215 acres of land in Coleman county, Tex., purchased with part of the proceeds derived from the sale of 254 acres of land in Grayson county. Appellants are children and grandchildren of J. C. Watson and M. E. Watson, his deceased wife. The Grayson county land was conveyed to J. C. Watson by his father and mother in 1890 by deed reciting a consideration of love and affection and $5 in cash. Appellants claimed approximately a half interest in the Coleman county land, on the ground that the real consideration for the conveyance of the Grayson county land to J. C. Watson by his father and mother was not that recited in the deed, but his agreement to take care of them the rest of their lives; that he and his wife, through whom appellants claim, did take care of them for some 12 years after said conveyance, at which time the Grayson county land was sold, and that J. C. Watson paid his parents, grantors in said deed, $1,000 to release him from further obligation to care for them the rest of their lives; that by reason of these facts the Grayson county land became the community property of J. C. and M. E. Watson, and not the separate property of J. C. Watson, as alleged by him. The case was submitted to a jury on special issues, all of which were answered in favor of appellee, and judgment rendered in his favor, from which the defendants have appealed.
Appellants' first proposition complains of the exclusion of the proffered testimony of Mrs. Lucy Elliott, sister of J. C. Watson, to the effect that J. C. Watson had told her before and at about the time the Grayson county land was conveyed to him that the consideration for such conveyance was to be that he take care of the grantors the rest of their lives. This testimony was admissible as a declaration against interest on the vital issue in the case; i. e., What was the actual consideration for said conveyance? The trial court admitted testimony of four of the children of said J. C. Watson and M. E. Watson, deceased, that their father, J. C. Watson, had told them that the consideration for the conveyance to him of the Grayson county land was that he was to care for his father and mother the rest of their lives. This J. C. Watson denied, and the jury found in his favor. These witnesses were interested parties and defendants. But Mrs. Lucy Elliott was a disinterested witness, whose testimony may and probably would have had more weight with the jury. It cannot be said, therefore, that its exclusion was harmless on the ground that such testimony was merely cumulative. Bank v. Cunningham (Tex. Civ. App.) 256 S. W. 317; Warren v. Humphreys (Tex. Civ. App.) 274 S. W. 250, 251.
The testimony also showed that J. C. Watson and his wife did take care of his parents from the time of said conveyance until the Grayson county land was sold, in 1903, but not thereafter. For the same reason we think the proffered testimony of Mrs. Elliott was admissible to the effect that J. C. Watson had also told her after the sale of the Grayson county land that he had paid his parents $1,000 in lieu of taking care of them thereafter for the rest of their lives.
Statements made by the father or mother of J. C. Watson, both of whom are long since dead, that the consideration for their conveyance to J. C. Watson was that he should care for them as long as they lived, were not admissible. Such a consideration would impose a more onerous burden on J. C. Watson than that recited in their deed to him, and would inure to their benefit. It would therefore be self-serving as to them. As stated in Warren v. Humphreys, supra, "Statements made by a party against interests are admissible against him, but any statements made by him which are self-serving are not admissible, and the fact that the party is dead does not change the...
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