Adams v. Zellner
Adams v. Zellner
Opinion of the Court
Appellants sued appellee in the court below in trespass to try title to recover 265 acres of land out of the W. F. Savage survey in Hill county, Tex. At trial the court instructed verdict for appellee, which was returned accordingly, and upon which *934 judgment was entered that appellants take nothing by their suit, and that appellee have judgment for costs, and from which this appeal is taken.
The facts essential to a disposition of this appeal, and practically undisputed, are, in our own language, substantially as follows: Appellants being the owners of the land sued for on July 3i), 1907, executed a deed of trust thereon, which was properly recorded in Hill county, conveying same to Herman Eastland as trustee to secure an indebtedness therein described, due Baggott & McCormick, and conferring upon the trustee the powers usually conferred by such conveyances, among such being the provision' that before a sale of the property under the deed of trust for failure to pay the debt secured thereby could be lawfully made, the trustee should give 20 days’ notice of the time, place, and terms of sale, “in accordance with the laws of the state of Texas regulating sales of real estate under deeds of trust.” Subsequent to the execution of the deed of trust, and on October 6, 1908, the trustee, as such, conveyed the land to J. J. Baggott, reciting in the conveyance that appellants defaulted in payment of the debt secured by the deed of trust, the demand to sell, and the time and place of sale, and, among others, the following recital with reference to the notice given:
“I proceeded to sell said property at public auction at Hillsboro, Hill county, Texas, between the hours of 1Ó a. m. and 4 p. m. on the first Tuesday, the sixth day of October, 1908, after having given public notice' of the time, place and terms of such sale by posting a public notice on the courthouse door, Hill county, Texas, as required by said trust deed.”
Preliminary to the sale the trustee personally posted the notice of the sale recited in his deed to Baggott at the courthouse door in Hillsboro, Hill county, Tex. He also forwarded a notice of the sale to appellant, David W. Adams, by registered mail at Prairie Grove, Ark., which Adams received. One notice was mailed to some one at Whitney, and the other to some one at Hubbard, or Itasca, Tex., with the request in each instance that the notice be posted. All the places named are in Hill county and are public places. At trial the trustee could not recall to whom he mailed the notices, *and did not, as matter of fact, know whether the persons to whom he sent them actually posted them. The notice posted by the trustee, ajid those sent out for posting, were in time to give notice for more than 20 days prior to the day of sale, if in fact, posted. On July 26, 1909, Baggott conveyed the land to appellee, Zell- i uer, in consideration of 81,240 cash.
*935 It being then in such cases a matter of proof whether the notice required by law has been given, and conceding, as urged by appellant, that the recital in the trustee’s deed that but one notice had been posted rebutted the presumption of regularity that ordinarily obtains when the deed is in regular form and purports to be the execution of a power conferred in the trust deed, we nevertheless conclude that the court did not err in not submitting to the jury the issue of whether the necessary notice had been given, for the reason that, as we have said, facts practically identical were held in Roe’s Case to show compliance with law, and, being the only facts and the undisputed facts, the issue was established, and it but remained for the trial judge to apply the law arising thereon.
For the reasons stated the judgment is affirmed.
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Reference
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- ADAMS Et Al. v. ZELLNER
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