Snyder v. Nunn

Citations

• 66 Tex. 255
• 18 S.W. 340
• 1886 Tex. LEXIS 496

Syllabus

<p>1. Pleading—Demurrer—A general allegation of ownership in the plaintiff is sufficient in a petition for the recovery of land; but if, in addition, the plaintiff sets forth his title and it does not appear good, a general demurrer to the petition should be sustained. See opinion.</p> <p>2. Act of April 6,1881, construed—Appraisement—The act of 1874 is no more rigid in its requirements as to an appraisement than the law of 1881. Under that law it was necessary that an appraisement should have been made by the officers named therein, in order to entitle a purchaser of school land to recover. That it was correctly made could not be presumed from the acceptance by the treasurer of the obligations and payments necessary to be made by the applicant.</p> <p>3. Same—An application to purchase land by a settler, under the act of 1881, made prior to the approval of the appraisement by the general land office, would vest no inchoate right in the applicant by reason of steps taken by him under that act.</p> <p>4. Act of April 12, 1883, construed—The act of 1881 was superseded and repealed by the act of April 12, 1883. But by it the rights of settlers in good faith under the law of 1881, upon lands which had been appraised by the proper surveyor, but not placed in the market, were saved when the appraisement had been approved by the commissioners’ court, and been filed in the general land office.</p> <p>6. Same—It was necessary that the land should have been appraised, that the application for purchase should have been filed within the prescribed time, accompanied by the affidavits necessary as proof of good faith, and that the regulations as to payment of the purchase money should have been complied with before the applicant could make the purchase under the act of 1881. Being a settler under the act of 1881, it was, in addition, necessary for such settlement to have existed on January 1, 1883, and at the time of the making of the application under the act of 1883. •</p>