This suit involves the doctrine- of stare, decisis. It is essentially appellants’ conten-, • tion that the case of Town of Refugio v. Heard was not fully developed on the facts, and 'therefore the decision of the Supreme Court in such litigation is not binding in the present suit. In the case mentioned, the Town of Refugio brought suit against certain owners of uplands abutting upon- the Mission River, claiming ownership of lands within the river bed. The case was dockеted as Cause No. 1172 on the docket of the District Court of Refugio County. An appeal was taken from the judgment of the district court and this Court rendered an opinion which is reported under the style of Town of Refugio v. Heard, Tex.Civ.App.,
The real property which is the subject matter of the present litigation lies within the bed of Mission River, and is situated south of the highway (U. S. No. 77) cross-' ing and within the four leаgues constituting the Refugio town grant of tract. These lands were not involved in the earlier cases above mentioned. The parties hereto, with the exception of the Town of Refugio and perhaps one other party, are likewise different and there is no contention that the doctrine of res judicata is applicable in any way.
The gravamen of appellant’s attack upon the Supreme Court’s dеcision in the Heard cases is the assertion that the Court erred in ’not distinguishing - between - Mexican “public grants”' and private grants and holding, as a consequence, that the general. Mexican public policy relating to grants along and acr.oss streams was applicable to “public grants.” ..It is asserted that .this *264 “•error”- on-the part of the Supremfe Court was due to an insufficient development of the facts in the former- suit; that the -fаcts of- the present case are essentially different from those of the former case, and as a result the-former decision should not be held' ■binding in the present litigation.
The record in this case is voluminous. Appellant ^asserts, sixty-three points of er-., ror and it would serve no good purpose to detail' the evidence, accepted and rejected, and to relate the various procedural steps takеn. We shall, however, set forth the salient portions of the argument advanced by appellants, tpgether with basis upon which our decision rests.
Trial was to the court without a jury. Findings of fact and conclusions of law were requested and filed. .We state therefrom the 'facts deemed essentia! to the decision by the trial judge, tpgether with his reasons for awarding the Town, of Refugio an undivided four-fifths interest in the Mission River bed lying. 'below the. highway bridge. "
• Thе Town of Refugió possesses a corporate existence under and by virtue of various acts of the Congress of the. Republic of Texas, which became effective in the years 1837, 1838,' 1839 and 1842 (1 Gammel’s Laws 1459, 1.499, 2 Gammel’s Laws 118, 758), and an act of the Legislature of the State bf, Texas, which became effective in 1848 (3 iGammel’s Laws 430). These Acts of ■ incorporation provided that the corporate boundaries of, the town should be cоextensive with the four leagues theretofore appropriated by the Mexican Government for those purposes, and the town council was authorized to sell- lots or parcels of land within the jurisdiction of the town for municipal purposes. The establishment of the-town -by Mexican'authority took place in-1834, under an -executive order ■ of -the Go-Verfior of Coahuila and Texas', which designated ■ the si-te of the еxtinguished- Mission of-;Refugio (of Spanish' origin);as the-capital town of the -Irish colony of Power' and Hewetson. The lands allotted 'to the town were on both sides of ■the'Mission River, as were the lands of the predecessor mission. A survey of ' the
ejidos
or town tract was made by James Bray, - one of the settlers in the colony. The boundary' lines thereof ran on both-sides of the' river and across the stream. The map made by Bray shows the tract to hаve been surveyed in the form of a perfect square, having sides of 10,000 varas in length, with' the principal town plaza in the center, and containing exactly four square leagues of land. The Mission River is a perennial stream and while not in fact navigable, it is a statutory navigable watercourse as defined by the Act of -1837 Congress, Republic ■ of Texas.- 1 Gammel’s Laws 140-5; Article 5302, Vernon’s Ann. Civ.Stats. The Congresses of the Republic at the time they confirmed title to the Refugio
ejidos
knew that the boundary lines- thereof crossed -the' Mission River. No formal patent was ever issued to the
ejidos
and none was necessary to vest title in view of the nature of the original grant and the confirming acts of the Congress of the Republic. Town of Refugio v. Byrne,
Between 1847 and 1886, the. Town of Refugio-, from time to time, subdivided and platted the
ejidos
into farm, timber and •post oak lots and sold practically all, if not all, such lots,' inсluding those riparian to the Mission River. The appellants claim under these deeds. The great majority of these- conveyances weire by lot number. Ap-pellees say that all of them were, but the trial judge indicated that some conveyances reférred to the river as a boundalry. The p'oirit of difference is not shown to be material. State v. Grubstake Investment Association,
The trial court concluded, as a matter of lаw, that the judgment in this case was controlled . and' determined by the Supremfe Court’s decisions in the Heard' cases—Heard v. Town of Refugio,
As to the record difference in this case and the previous cases, the trial judge made .the following findings, viz.:
“I find that the Acts of Incorporation of 1837, 1838, 1839, and charters, of other towns made part thereof by reference, were not in evidence in Cause No. 1172 (the first Heard case); * * *
“I find that much of the evidence that was produced in this case, regarding the origin, nature and extent of the ■title of the Refugio pueblo grant, and the Spanish and Mexican laws governing it, and the legislative history of the confirmations thereof, was never produced as evidence in Cause No. 1172, and Cause No. 61483 (the second Heard case).”
The trial judge concluded, as a matter of law, in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision in the first Heard case, that title to the river bed' did not emanate from thе sovereign until the passage of the Small Bill in 1929, Article 5414a, Vernon’s Ann.Tex.Stats., and that such legislation inured to the benefit of the town, insofar as sufficient acreage to make up the total area called for in the original four league grant was concerned. In the interest o-f clarity, it should here be stated that after the remand of the first Heard case it was determined that the town was entitled to four-fifths and the State to one-fifth оf the river bed. See State v. Heard,
The trial judge considered a volume of evidence “concerning. the law of Mexican grants to pueblos, -and the facts and proceedings, and adjudicated decisions, relative to such grants in connection with Texas and Mexican towns, other than the town of Refugio.” Appellants requested the coürt to take judicial notice of certain stated historical facts and incidental laws relating to pueblo grants. However, at the conclusion of -the trial'the court indicated that such matters sought to be proved by evidence or noticed judicially would not constitute a sufficient basis for a departure from the holdings of the Supreme Court in the Heard cases.'
‘The following excerpt from appellants’ “Request for Judicial. Notice” fairly well summarizes and illustrates appellants’ contentions as to the nature of a pueblo gfant, viz.:
•“Under the public policies and laws of Sрain and Mexico, in force in Texas until her independence,, towns, or -pueb-; los, or villas, were established only'by the sovereign, or under his or its permission. Such towns were not municipal corporations, or entities, but their ayuntamientos weré simply part of the political government of the county. .The town could be abolished at the will of the sovereign.
“Upon the establishment of a town, an area of land, customarily four ■'square leagues, was designated for its ejidos, or town commons. The ejidos ■were public domain set apart .to a particular public use. ■ No title passed out of the sovereign into the town, but remained in the sovereign. . The rights . of the town in the ejidos were usufruc-tuary only.- One of the-essential.purposes of ejidos-was to provide munici■pal revenues for 'the town ds well as ■comfort a-nd well-being to, its inhabit- , ants. Title remained in the sovereign though dedicated to municipal use, and ■ neither the inhabitants, nor the town, ás such, had a vested right in the continued use. The concession could be *266 extinguished at'will of the sovereign. Such á pueblo concession was a public and not a private grant.”
From this basis it is argued that a pueblo establishment was dissimilar in .nature from a private grant, in that it involved, no cession of title, as distinguished from a, usu-fructuary right, and accordingly there was no public policy forbidding the crossing of streams in laying out such grants. In faсt, it is pointed out and the records.of numerous grants are referred to as demonstrating that the Spanish and Mexican.policy .in establishing, .towns was to locate them on .both sides of rivers and streams in order that the inhabitants of the town would have available water supply for their livestock and domestic needs. 1
It is contended, however, that the usu-fructuary rights awarded to the town and the inhabitants thereof by the Mexican authority in 1834, was, ■ nevertheless, an inchoate or equitable title capable of being confirmed and thus made perfect by the sovereign; that this was done by various Acts of the Congress of the Republic and the Legislature of the State, and as there was no public policy forbidding the crossing of a stream by a public pueblo grant, these confirmations were effective to confer title to the river bed as well as to all other pаrts of the grant. As a corollary, appellants say that as the town owned the river bed at the time- of the various conveyances to ■ their predecessors in title, such deeds should be construed as conveying title to the thread of the stream rather than' to the banks thereof only.
Appellants further assert that the provisions of the Small Bill, Article 54.14a, Vernon’s Ann.Tex.Stats., did not operate to vest the town of Refugio and the Statе with title' to the river bed. It is said that this theory of title was injected into the first *267 Heard case by the Supreme Court itself, and was not raised by the parties thereto, and particularly that the Supreme Court did not have the benefit of the evidence adduced upon the trial of the present case.
We are aware of the fact that the bindingness of a precedent or the
ratio de-cidendi
of a case can not be determined independently of the facts upon which the decision is based. 21 C.J.S., Courts, § 210, p. 383; 14 Am.Jur. 291, Courts, § 79. Upon an examination of the claimed factual differences of the record before us and the two Heard cases heretofore adjudicated, it will be found that such asserted differences relate to historical. facts or matters within the field of judicial knowledge. Judicial knowledge of a court may, of course, extend beyond the personal knowledge of the judges making up the court and, as a practical matter, information in the nature of evidence is received in order to enable a court to intelligently make -use of its judicial knowledge. State v. Cuellar,
• As to historical facts, there is an instance where the Supreme Court of the United States modified a rule of law theretofore declared when the results of an historical study of the jurisdiction of the English Chancery Courts in the time of Queen Elizabeth were brought to its attention. Vidal v. Girard’s Executors,
“Decisions of a court of last resort are to be regarded as law and should be followed by inferior courts, whatever the view of the latter may-be as to their correctness, until they have been reversed or overruled,' ■ * *' 21 C.J.S:, Courts, § 197, p. 343.
The same is true as to the construction of the descriptions contained in the deeds under which appellants hold. The Supreme Court in the first Heard case held that these conveyances did not
purport
to convey title to the center of the stream and thus embrace land it did not own, hence the relinquishment provisions of the Small Bill, insofar as the river bed was concerned, inured to the 'benefit of the Town of Refugio (as to the acreage necessary to make up the amount called for by the grant), as the town had not conveyed such interest and consequently had no assignees thereto. Manry v. Robison,
The theory of title in the Town of Refugio to the river bed by operation of the Small Bill is settled law, insofar as this Court is concerned, and this is true even though title by such source was not urged *268 by the contending parties in , this Court or the Supreme Court in the first Heard case. In determining the question of title, the Supreme Court was not obliged' to ignore á. public ..law duly enacted by the Legislature, ¡because-the parties did not predicate their', respective -claims - thereo-n, and this Court did not consider the1 same in accepting the'-tacit-agreement, .of the .parties -that thе Town of Refugio held title to the river, bed prior to the execution of»deeds by- -the town conveying the riparian uplands. A question of title was involved, which necessarily is determinable by all the applicable legislative enactments and not those alone which are suggested- by the parties as a basis for their respective claims.
Appellants' brief contains certain assignments attacking the accuracy of Boyle’s survey demarking the boundary line between the river bed and the uplands. While these points are not fully briefed-, we have considered the same and are of the opinion that, they are not well taken. The boundary seems to have been set in accordance with applicable principles of law. State of Oklahoma v. State of Texas,
The briefs discuss at some length the south boundary line of the- Refugio town grant. Appellants say that they had prepared an “exhaustive mass of evidence regarding the history of the boundaries of the town tract” in anticipation of a contention that there was an excess in the grant. Upon the remand of the first Heard case, after all pаrties except the Town o-f Refugio and the State (which intervened) had been dismissed, it, was determined that there wa-s an excess in the grant which accounts for the State’s present proprietory interest in the. river bed. See statement with reference thereto contained in the opinion of the .Supreme Court in .the second Heard .case. State v. Heard,
So far as we have been able, to find, there are no. parties to .this suit who claim under the grant or -survey lying immediately south of the Town Tract. This is therefore npt a -boundary dispute between claimants under adjoinjng and possibly conflicting grants.. The south boundary line at- the point it crosses, the river is only incjdently involved. It could hardly be contended that in a suit of this nature a boundary line could be established. which would, be binding upon the owners of lands in the adjoining grants by operation of the rule of stare- decisis or otherwise.- Gus M. Hodges, Stare Decisis in Boundary Disputes, 21 Texas-Law Review 241. Appellants’ group of points raising the-contention discussed do not. call for a reversal of the judgment.
We are further'of the, opinion that the State of Texas, which refused to- intervene herein, was not an indispensable party. The Town of Refugio, as a tenant in common, was authorized to maintain the action.
'We have considered all o-f appellants’ points. None of them presents a reversible error. In our opinion the trial court correctly held that the judgment herein is controlled by the Supreme Court’s decisions in the Heard cases, and such judgment is accordingly affirmed.
Notes
. Appellants’ expert, Hon. Harbert Davenport of Brownsville, Texas, testified rather extensively as to the nature of a pueblo grant under the Spanish and Mexican authorities. He indicated his belief that much of his testimony related to matters within the judicial knowledge of the court. State v. Cuellar,47 Tex. 295 ; State v. Sais,47 Tex. 307 ; and referred to a number of reported cases dealing with pueblo grants which are of legal and historical interest, among them being: City of Brownsville v. Cavazos,10 Otto 138 ,100 U.S. 138 ,25 L.Ed. 574 (Brownsville-Matamoros), City of Brownsville v. Basse & Hard,36 Tex. 461 (Brownsville-Matamoros), Texas Mexican Ry. Co. v. Jarvis,69 Tex. 527 ,7 S.W. 210 (Laredo), Downing v. Diaz,80 Tex. 436 ,16 S.W. 49 (Guerrero), State v. Gallardo, Tex.Civ.App.,135 S.W. 664 ,“ Id.,106 Tex. 274 ,166 S.W. 369 (Reynosa Viejo), Sullivan v. Solis,52 Tex.Civ.App. 464 ,114 S.W. 456 (Camargo), Alexander v. Garcia, Tex.Civ.App.,168 S.W. 376 (Palafox, the phantom town, of the Rio Grand?). Davenport quotes from “Ordenanzas de Tierras y Aguas” (Mexico 1844), by Ma'ri-¿no ' Rivera Galvan,' with reference. to Spanish pueblos, as follows:
“In consideration that a person cannot live without sustenance; likewise no city " can subsist without .an income. His “Majеsty was pleased to grant to the settlements of America * * * in the nature of a gift or town privilege a certain portion of the lands in order that they might secure their subsistence and.improve their circumstances, holding a usufruct on the pasture and cultivated land, or in any manner their municipal ordinances should dispose.” (Translation by Leonidas Hamilton ; “Hamilton’s Mexican Law,” San Eranciseo, 1882.)
As to California pueblos, it is said in Corpus Juris that:
“A Spanish or Mexican pueblo orgаnized in California under the laws, institutions, and regulations of Spain or Mexico acquired a prior and paramount right to the use of the waters of rivers or streams passing through and over or under the surface of their allotted lands so far as was necessary for the pueblo or its inhabitants, and had the right to distribute to the common lands and to the inhabitants of the pueblo the waters of a nonnavigable river on which the pueblo was situated.” 67 C.J. 1130, Waters, § 616.
Other authorities relating to Texas pueblo grants are: Kemper v. Town of Victoria,