Hermann v. Bailey
Hermann v. Bailey
Opinion of the Court
Defendants in error, L. H. Bailey and Fredrick Stucy, each brought suit in the district court of Harris county against George H. Hermann and James McKee for separate tracts of land, both alleged to be part of the James Hamilton survey No. 34. By agreement of all parties the two causes were consolidated and tried as one suit, as the issues in both cases were the same. While the two original suits were brought in the form of trespass to try title to the lands involved in the suit, the only matter at issue was as to where Surveyor H. Trott, who originally surveyed and located both the James Hamilton and P. W. Rose surveys, located so much of the north line of the Hamilton and the south line of the Rose, and so much of the east line of the Hamilton and the west line of the Rose, as divides the two surveys, said lines being coincident or common lines of said two surveys, and therefore said suit is strictly a boundary suit. This, we think, was clearly agreed to by all parties to the suit. It is also agreed by all parties that, if the lands in dispute are parts of the Rose survey, the defendants in error have no title to the same, and that, if the same are parts of the Hamilton survey, the plaintiffs in error have no .title thereto.
Plaintiff in error G. H. Hermann in his answer alleged that “the north line of the said Hamilton survey is the same as the south line of the Rose league.”
Defendant in error Stucy made H. W. Peters, Lee Peters, Albert Peters, and Ernest Peters parties defendant by his amended petition, alleging therein that said last-named parties were claiming some kind of interest in the land sued for by him. H. W., Lee, Albert, and Ernest Peters by proper plea made Virginia Hooper and husband, Harvey W. Hooper, Regina Shepherd, Allen S. Shepherd, and Blount Shepherd parties to the suit.
As before stated, all parties conceded during the trial of the cause that the suit was a suit to establish the common or coincident division lines between the said Hamilton survey No. 34 and the P. W. Rose survey. There is no other issue by any of the parties to the suit presented to this court by this appeal, and therefore we shall confine this opinion to that issue alone. The case Was tried before a jury, and the question at issue as herein indicated was submitted by the court on special issues as follows:
“Where do you find from the evidence before you that the surveyor who made the original location of the P. W. Rose survey and the Hamilton survey No. 34 located the boundary line between said surveys upon the ground?”
The answers of the jury to said question were as follows:
“We, the jury, find that the surveyor who made the original location of the Hamilton survey No. 34 and the P. W. Rose survey located the boundary line between said surveys on the ground as follows, viz.: We locate the southwest corner of the Rose survey and the northwest corner of Hamilton survey 27 at an iron stake in fence corner in the Owens east boundary line at a point due south 500 varas from the Gillespie stake set for the northeast corner of the Owens survey and at a point 380 varas south of Brays Bayou. From this beginning corner we locate the northeast corner of Hamilton survey No. 34 at a point 3,800 varas due east, and from this northeast corner of Hamilton survey No. 34 so located we locate, the east line Hamilton survey No. 34 by *867 extending a line due south from said last-mentioned corner, locating the most southern southwest corner of Rose survey at a point on this line 865 varas south of the northeast corner of the Hamilton survey as located above, and we locate the northwest corner of Hamilton No. 34 at a point 1,900 varas west of the northeast corner of the Hamilton survey No. 34 as above located.”
Whereupon the court rendered judgment in conformity to said verdict, fixing the said boundary lines as contended for by defendants in error, L. H. Bailey and Fredrick Stuey, and adjudging to them the title to the respective tracts of land sued for by them.
It should have been apparent to counsel for plaintiffs in error that to make a careful examination of so large a statement of facts as the one in question would have required more time than was given to counsel for Mr. Bailey in this instance, and we think that counsel for plaintiffs in error have not exercised the degree of diligence which they should have exercised in presenting said statement of facts to opposing counsel that they might have time to examine th.e same before the expiration of the time allowed by law for filing same. We therefore sustain the motion of defendant in error Bailey, and refuse to consider said statement of facts in so far as it relates to him in this case. See M., K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Whitfield, 123 S. W. 710.
The original field notes made by Trott, who located both of said surveys, which were introduced in evidence, shows that the work of surveying the Rose was begun in May, 1838, and completed in April, 1839, about one year after the work was begun, and that the work of surveying the Hamilton was completed in November, 1838. The original field notes made by Trott for the Rose survey calls for the north line of the Hamilton as a part of its south line, and the original field notes for the Hamilton calls for the south line of the Rose for its north line. From the foregoing we think the surveyor who located the two surveys in question intended to, and did, make the north line of the Hamilton and the south line of the Rose, where the Rose joins the Hamilton on the north, a common or coincident line.
In their answer plaintiffs in error pleaded that:
“The north line of the Hamilton survey is the same as the south line of the Rose league.”
It was also agreed by all parties to the suit, as shown by the statement of facts, that the only question involved in this suit is a matter of boundary, that is, as to the location of the north and the east lines of the Hamilton survey No. 34; that said lines are one the south line and the other the west line of the Rose survey.
In the second paragraph of plaintiffs’ requested charge No. 4 we find the following:
“The north line of Hamilton survey No. 34 is the same line as a part of the south line of the P. W. Rose survey, and a part of the east line of Hamilton survey No. 34 is the same line as one of the west lines of the P. W. Rose survey, and it will be your duty, guided by the instructions given to you, to ascertain *868 where the original surveyor run these dividing lines when the lands were originally located and surveyed.”
We therefore conclude that the complaints made by assignments 1, 2, and 3 are untenable and without merit. The action of the court complained of is supported by the pleading of the parties complaining, by the agreement of all parties to the suit, and by the evidence, and was in conformity to the special requested charge of the complaining parties, and therefore they cannot be heard to complain of any act of the court invited by them. It has uniformly been held that a party cannot on appeal call in question the accuracy of a charge given by the judge when it embraces the same instruction contained in a charge requested by the party complaining, whether the requested charge be given or refused, unless it appear affirmatively from the record that the judge was not misled in the matter by the requested instruction. Nagle v. Simank, 64 Tex. Civ. App. 432, 116 S. W. 862; Railway Co. v. Sein, 89 Tex. 67, 33 S. W. 215, 558.
“You are further instructed that special locative calls are of higher dignity or grade and ordinarily entitled to more weight than mere directory or incidental passing calls contained in the field notes. It is only when calls for natural objects are locative calls that they are of higher grade or greater dignity than calls for artificial objects or course or distance. If calls for natural objects are not called for as fixing the corner or boundary of the land being described, but merely noted in the field notes as incidental calls in passing, they are only directory or passing calls, and in such instances will not ordinarily control calls for course and distance. Distances called for between corners to creeks o-r roads, unless specially designated in such manner as to make them locative calls, are not such, and will not ordinarily have precedence over calls for course and distance.”
In view of the peculiar state of facts in this case, we think the requested charge was upon the weight of the evidence, and that the court properly refused the same.
We think the evidence amply supports the verdict of the jury and the judgment of the trial court.
There appearing no reversible error from the record in this case, the judgment of the court below is in all things affirmed.
Affirmed.
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Reference
- Full Case Name
- HERMANN Et Al. v. BAILEY Et Al.
- Cited By
- 4 cases
- Status
- Published