31 Tex. 677 | Tex. | 1869
—A judgment having been recovered against the appellant by John L. Cochran, at the spring term, 1867, of the district court of Brazoria county, an execution issued thereon,- and was levied upon four town lots, and the improvements, in the town of Brazoria. The appellant sued out a writ of injunction against the execution, alleging, in his petition to obtain it, that the lots and improvements were his homestead, and did not exceed in value the sum of $2,000. In his petition the sheriff alone was made a party defendant in the suit. The plaintiff in the execution, who ought also to have been made a defendant, without citation, appeared and made himself a party defendant, and was, in fact, the real party in interest. He filed his answer, denying that the property levied on was the homestead of the appellant,
The facts are, substantially, that the appellant acquired the property by devise, in the year 1855; that there was a house upon one of the lots at the time of the acquisition; that the appellant occupied it as a sleeping apartment, or dormitory, from 1855 to 1865; that he erected a new house thereon in 1866, designing it as his dwelling and furnishing it as such, building a kitchen, putting up a cooking-stove, &c., and intending to occupy it as a dwelling; that he leased out the premises since the year 1866; that the whole of the lots and improvements do not exceed in value $2,000; that the lessee was required to make other improvements; that the appellant is a single man, and has never had wife nor children, nor had he,, at any time, domestics, or servants, upon the premises, but that he occupied the premises alone, and ate elsewhere; that, at the institution of .the suit and at the obtention [?] of the judgment upon which the execution enjoined was issued, he did not live there, nor has he lived there since.
The constitution protects from forced sale the homestead of a family. This protection requires no aid from legislation. It is made secure, by the fundamental law of the state, from all invasion by any legal process, and is intended to be made, by this constitutional provision, the inviolable sanctuary of the family: not merely the head of the family, but of all its members, whether consisting of
The facts in this case, however, do not bring the appellant within the scope of this constitutional protection. He does not appear to have had any family, either in a popular, legal, or constitutional sense, living upon the premises, at any time, from the acquisition of the property down to the trial of the cause. He therefore cannot claim an exemption of the property from the satisfaction of his just debts. Wherefore, the judgment is
Affirmed.