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77 Tex. 212

Etter v. Dignowitty

Texas Supreme Court

Decided May 6, 1890

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1890-05-06

<p>1. Disclaimer.—Suit for a tract of land imperfectly described in the petition. The defendant pleaded not guilty. An order of survey issued. The surveyor reported under the order with a sufficiently definite description. The defendant, after the report was filed, disclaimed. The cause was tried by the court without a jury, and judgment was rendered for the plaintiffs for the land, the judgment adding from the report to the description in the petition. A motion for new trial was overruled. Held:</p> <p>1. The withdrawing of the plea of not guilty by the disclaimer was an implied confession of judgment, having reference to the cause of action stated or attempted to be stated in the petition.</p> <p>2. After the disclaimer the defendant had the right to be heard on the trial to object to testimony showing title in plaintiffs to land not described in petition.</p> <p>3. It not appearing but that the judgment was for the land sued for, it will not be revised.</p> <p>2. Costs.—A disclaimer does not free a defendant from costs accrued up to the time of disclaiming.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1890-05-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently September 1946

3 state decisions

10189019001910192019301940decided

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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HENRY, Associate Justice.

¶1—This was an action of trespass to try title brought by appellees. The petition described the land “ as being the south one-half of garden lot No. 2, of one and one-half acres, in division E in the town of Del Rio in the county of Val Verde.”

¶2The defendant appeared and pleaded not guilty. An order of survey of the land was made, and a survey of it was reported and filed.

¶3After the report of the survey had been filed the defendant withdrew his answer and filed a disclaimer of title to the land as described in plaintiffs’ petition.

¶4The cause was tried without a jury and a judgment was rendered for the recovery of the land.

¶5The description of the land in the judgment, in addition to the description of it contained in plaintiffs’ petition, added from the surveyor’s, report a description by courses and distances and physical objects.

¶6The disclaimer was filed on the same day that judgment Avas rendered, and on the folloAving day the defendant filed his request for the court to file its conclusions of law and fact. The defendant filed a motion for new trial, not under oath or supported by affidavit, attacking the correctness of the report of survey.

¶7The appellant complains of the judgment against him for costs and of the judgment by a different description of the land from that contained in the petition, and because the judgment rendered fails to conform in every particular of description to the surveyor’s report.

¶8In the case of Storey v. Nichols, 22 Texas, 93, it is said that “the withdrawing the pleas is an implied confession of judgment, having reference to the cause of action stated or attempted to be stated in the petition.”

¶9After he had withdrawn his answer and disclaimed, defendant had the right to be heard at the trial to object to plaintiffs introducing proof of title to land not claimed in the petition.

¶10Such objection was not made at the trial, nor was it properly made to *215appear by the motion for a new trial that the land described by the surveyor’s report was not the identical land claimed in the petition.

¶11The surveyor’s report was on file when defendant withdrew his answer and disclaimed. The survey was made with his knowledge and with reference to being used as evidence on the trial of the cause. If the land described in the report was in fact the same land that was described in the petition, the fact that the report described it with greater particularity was not a reason for its being excluded as evidence, even if it had been objected to at the proper time. The judgment indicates that it is for the same land described in the petition, and the defendant has not in a proper manner made it appear that an error was committed in that or in any other particular.

¶12The defendant not having entered his disclaimer until after he had answered, was subject to the judgment for costs that was rendered against him.

¶13The judgment is affirmed.

¶14Affirmed.

¶15Delivered May 6, 1890.

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