Opinion

Driscoll Foundation v. Nueces County

  • 445 S.W.2d 1
  • 34 Oil & Gas Rep. 623
  • 1969 Tex. App. LEXIS 2367
Court
Court of Appeals of Texas
Filed
Sep 4, 1969
Status
Published
Author
Stephenson
On the bench
Keith, Stephenson
Cited by
13 cases

The opinion

STEPHENSON, Justice

(concurring).

I concur in the disposition of this appeal and agree that the case should be affirmed. However, I do not concur in that portion of the majority opinion holding appellants to qualify as “natural persons” as that term is used in the provision of the Constitution in question.

I interpret “all lands owned by natural persons” to mean the beneficial owner of the land. Even though the legal title to the land involved in this litigation was vested in the Trustees, the beneficial owner of the land is the Foundation created by the testamentary trust. No one contends the Foundation is a “natural person.”

If this land should qualify under this provision of the Constitution, the Foundation and not the Trustees individually would receive the benefit. To further demonstrate the inequity of the majority holding, if the testator had named a bank as Trustee for this testamentary trust, the same land could not qualify, simply because the Trustee was not a natural person.

Further, under this holding, a corporation owning land for future industrial purposes, could convey it in trust to a natural person as Trustee, for agricultural use, and receive the benefit of this Constitutional provision. I do not conclude this interpretation to be a reasonable construction of such provision.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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