Justice Dana Womack
Lois J. Blanton v. Red Desert Enterprises, LLC and Cheryl Miles, (02-23-00191-CV; May 2, 2024) arose from a dispute over about 3.9 acres of land in Fort Worth. In 2008 the Blanton Family Partnership (BFP) conveyed part of the property to Keystone Exploration, retaining about 1.4 acres. Three days later Keystone conveyed the property to XTO, which in 2020 sold it to Miles. Shortly thereafter, Miles transferred the property to Red Desert. BFP, on the other hand, conveyed the retained property to Blanton on January 15, 2020. The conveyance and assignment memorializing the transfer from BFP to Blanton, however, was not executed until October 6, 2022, after this suit was filed in September 2020. Blanton sued XTO and Texas Resource and Recycling for declaratory relief, alleging title to the retained 1.4 acres by adverse possession. She subsequently added Miles and Red Desert to the suit and nonsuited XTO and Texas Resources. The gist of the suit is that since Keystone sold the contested property to XTO in 2008, Blanton and her predecessors had continuously operated businesses in an industrial and office building on the site, entitling her to title by adverse possession. She claimed further that Defendants had converted certain equipment on the site used for a fats and oil recycling operation. Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment and a plea to the jurisdiction on the basis that Plaintiff had no standing to bring suit because she did not have an ownership interest in the property on the date suit was filed. The trial court granted the plea. Plaintiff sought interlocutory relief.
In an opinion by Justice Womack, the court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. As to Plaintiff’s adverse possession claim for the real property, the court affirmed the trial court’s order. Pursuant to the constitutional standing rule, the court opined, whether a court has standing must be considered as of the date the lawsuit is filed. Plaintiff argued that the two-year delay between filing the lawsuit and executing the transfer upon which she based her adverse possession claim was immaterial to standing because she “cured” the jurisdictional problem. The court disagreed, holding that because a conveyance of real property must be conveyed by an instrument in writing, the absence of such instrument on the date Plaintiff filed suit was fatal, and trial court properly dismissed the case without prejudice. (In the event, Plaintiff had already refiled the lawsuit by the time the court of appeals ruled.)
As to the conversion claim, however, the court reversed the trial court dismissal. Since that claim involved personal property, a writing was not required to establish ownership as of any specific date. Pointing to Plaintiff’s evidence showing the transfer of the machinery and equipment in January 2020, prior to the date suit was filed, the court determined that Plaintiff has raised a genuine fact issue as to whether she had standing to bring the conversion claim. The trial court thus erred in granting Defendants’ plea to the jurisdiction on that issue.
