Citations
- 257 S.W.2d 804
Full opinion text
W. O. MURRAY, Chief Justice.
This suit was instituted by Amador E. Garcia as plaintiff against his five sisters and three husbands of the, three sisters who now have living husbands, seeking to recover a one-sixth undivided interest in approximately 10,000 acres of land situated in Webb County, Texas.
The basis upon which plaintiff seeks a recovery is an alleged parol trust. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment under the provisions of Rule 166-A, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, which was opposed by plaintiff.
The trial court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment that plaintiff take nothing and Amador E. Garcia has prosecuted this appeal.
It appears that in about the year 1910 appellant went into the cattle business with his father, Eusebia Garcia. The father owned or acquired about 10,000 acres of land located in Webb County, where they carried on their cattle business. As a result of this business they acquired a large fortune. However, during the depression of 1929 and the following years, they got into very serious financial difficulties and owed the Laredo National Bank (hereinafter referred to as Bank) large sums of money, secured by liens upon the 'above mentioned land. ;’
The Bank instituted foreclosure proceedings and ultimately had the property sold at sheriff’s sale; at which s.ale the Bank bought in the property and received a sheriff’s deed to same, dated June 2, 1936. On the-same day appellant’s five sisters, who are appel-lees herein (four of them being joined- by their husbands and one being a spinster), executed a vendor’s lien note for the full amount of the indebtedness held, by the Bank, béing the sum of $49,625.93, 'and .the five sisters received in return from- the Bank a quit-claim deed to the 10,000 acres of land. In this deed the Bank reserved the mineral rights, but in a second quit-claim deed, executed by the Bank about eighteen months later, the mineral rights were, also conveyed to the five sisters. JThe five sisters (the married ones, joined by their husbands) also executed a deed of trust conveying the 10,000 acres of land, togther with other lands* to B. M. Alexander, as trustee to secure the Bank in the.payment of the .$49,625.93 vendor’s lien .note given to the Bank. This indebtedness has- since been paid off.
Appellant alleges that at the time the foreclosure was had, an agreement was entered into between ¡the Bank, his father and brother-in-law. J. B. DaCamara, Jr.,.:and himself, to the effect that if he would not resist the’ foreclosure, the Bank would buy in the land and convey it to his five sisters, in consideration of their signing