Mоody brought an action of trespass to try title for two hundred acres of land against the -defendants. The title asserted was a deed from W. A. Casseday, undеr whom defendants also claimed title, with description as follows:
“Two hundred acres of the Chas. L. Harrison one-third league survey on the Wichita river, in Wichitа county, Texas, to be run off by the surveyor of said county, fronting four hundred and seventy-five varas on the river and back for complement of two hundred acres to be taken out of my half of said survey, and begin at the upper or lоwer corner and run with the upper or lower line of my survey for complement. Field notes to be attached to this deed by said surveyor and become a part of this instrument.” The deed bore date Hovember 13,1879, and
The case was tried by the judge, and he found as a fact that the abstract of the judgment had not been indexed, and that the lien was not fixed by the record without such indexing. The testimonyon which the finding was based was amply sufficient. The abstract had not been entered on the indеx as the j statute required.
Judgment liens are regulated by statute. Revised Statutes, аrticle 3155, provides what an abstract of a judgment for record shall cоntain. Article 3Í57 provides that “the county clerk : shall file and immediately reсord the same (the abstract) in ■ the judgment record, noting in such record the dаy and hour of such record,and shall also at the same time enter it upоn, the index.”
Article 3158: “The index to such judgment record shall be: alphabetical, and shall show the name of each plaintiff and of each defendаnt in the judgment, and the number of the page of the book upon which the abstrаct is recorded.” .
Article 3159 provides: “When any judgment has been recorded and indexed, as provided in the next preceding articles, it shall from the date of such record and index operate as a lien upon all the real estate of the defendant situated in the county where such record аnd index are made, and upon all real estate which the defendant mаy thereafter acquire, situated in said county.”
As the lien is the creature of the statute, it follows that until the conditions to the lien fixed by the statute have bеen complied with the lien is not established. The indexing so carefully describеd and provided for can not be dispensed with
The deed from Oasseday to Moody sufficiently identified the interest conveyed. The right to select the locality оf the two hundred acres was valid, and will be protected. (Wofford v. McKinney, 23 Texas, 46.) The subsequent levy and sale were subject to Moody’s rights. That the field notes were subsequently attached to the deed would not lessen its effect as a recorded instrument.
There was no error in the judgment below and it is affirmed.
Affirmed,