Walet v. Haskins

Citations

• 68 Tex. 418
• 4 S.W. 596
• 1887 Tex. LEXIS 709

Syllabus

<p>1. Equity—LACHES.—Equity will always refuse relief to stale demands when s party has slept upon Ms rights for a great length of time. Nothing ©an call forth its active interposition but conscience, good faith and reasonable diligence. Laches and neglect are always discountenanced.</p> <p>2. Laches.—One whose land has been conveyed by sheriffs deed under a voidable judgment rendered against him, can not, when chargeable with notice of the adverse deed and in possession of the evidence on which he relies to set aside the judgment, wait for ten years, during which the courts are open to him, and then maintain a suit to clear his title of the adverse claim.</p> <p>3. Same.—The fact that one seeking equitable relief after such a lapse of time was, during a portion of that period, in possession of the land, can not excuse his laches. His possession gave notice of the adverse claimant of his claim, but not that he would assert such claim in a suit to cancel the deed which assumed to convey under the judgment of a court, his title to another.</p> <p>4 Laches—One whose land has been sold under a judgment which he claims to have been voidable, can not excuse his apparent laches in instituting a suit to set it aside, on the ground that he could not procure the title papers to the land. In such a proceeding there is no necessity for the plaintiff to establish his own title as against an adversary who claims under him.</p>