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36 Tex. 120

Wells v. Polk

Texas Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1872

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1872-07-01

Error from Navarro. Tried below before the Hon. F. P. Wood. The principal features of the case are clearly denoted by the opinion. The immediate purchaser at the sheriff’s sale, under which the defendants in error deraigned title, was the plaintiff in execution himself, and his bid was paid by credit on his execution ; but the sheriff’s deed to him recited a cash consideration in the usual form.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1872-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently July 1936

5 state decisions

201872188018901900191019201930decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Walker, J.

¶1D. E. Mitchell died in 1853, leaving a large estate in lands, the title to eleven hundred acres of which is herein questioned. Wells and W. H. Mitchell administered on the estate of D. E. Mitchell. The estate was involved in debt, and the administrators applied to the probate court for a general order to sell the lands belonging to the estate to pay the debts. There was no specific description of the lands contained in the order. In pursuance of the order the lands in controversy were sold, and purchased by William B. Pillow. Sometime after the sale, Pillow conveyed this land to W. II. Mitchell, one of the administrators, who *127afterward became indebted to Solomon Van Hook, who caused the land to be sold upon execution against Mitchell. The land was purchased by A. Barry, who sold the land to the defendants.

¶2After the sale Mitchell went 'before the probate court, and procured an order setting aside the administrator’s sale, with a view to revest the title in the estate of D. R. Mitchell. Hpon this order and supposed irregularity of the order for sale, in that it did not designate what particular lands belonging to the estate of D. K. Mitchell were to be sold by the administrators, the appellant predicates his right to recover in this action.

¶3Though there may have been irregularity in the order of the probate court, it was not such as to render the proceeding absolutely void, and it cannot therefore be collaterally impeached. The probate court had jurisdiction to order the sale of the land, and though the order may not have been made in the precise manner pointed out by the statute, it was not void.

¶4Admitting that the sale to Pillow was intended to inure to the benefit of W. H. Mitchell, and that in this way he fraudulently obtained title to the land, subsequent bona fide purchasers without notice could not be affected by the fraud. We are therefore of opinion that the appellees, claiming under the sheriff’s deed, it not being shown that they are affected by notice in any manner of the fraud, obtained a good title.

¶5The judgment of the District Court is therefore affirmed.

¶6Affirmed.

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