Oil and Gas Lawyer Blog
The Texas Supreme Court recently declined to hear the Eckford Heirs’ appeal in Case No. 26-0003, Heirs of Eckford v. Nixon et al. The Court of Appeals’ opinion is Eckford v. Korth, 2025 WL 2845033 (Tex.App.-San Antonio, Oct. 8, 2025). The case was the subject of a Texas Monthly article, One Family Worked the Land for Generations. Another Believes They Lost an Inheritance. Both Are Still Waiting (Sept. 12, 2025).
The suit is over title to 147.5 acres of land in Karnes County, in the heart of the Eagle Ford play. The land was acquired by Louis and Eliza Eckford, freed from slavery on June 19, 1865. They had nine children. Louis died in 1896 without a will. According to the Texas Monthly article,
The 1880 census listed Louis as a farmer, and the Eckfords were among the early residents of a settlement described in a local paper as a community of “intelligent, progressive and prosperous colored people.” But their hold on the land, and their prosperity, proved to be tenuous. Just three years after the last purchase, records show Louis was declared insane by a local jury and transferred to what was known as the Texas State Lunatic Asylum in Austin.
In 1923, Eliza borrowed $300 from Fritz Korth, a local banker and rancher. To secure the loan she pledged her half interest in the 150 acres. (the other half interest was owned by her children.) Eliza died two years later. Her will named her son-in-law Major Smith as her executor, and he probated her will. But the probate court rejected Major Smith as executor and appointed a local banker, T.D. Ruckman, as executor.
Eliza’s estate remained in probate from her death in 1923 to 1939. In 1939 the probate court approved Ruckman’s sale of Eliza’s half interest in the 147.5 acres to Fritz Korth. Korth got credit on the sale price for the outstanding balance on Eliza’s note to Korth.
According to Texas Monthly,
It’s unknown if the Eckfords’ living children ever knew they had owned the half interest in the land that had belonged to Louis. It’s also unknown why they didn’t come forward to claim the land over those fourteen years it was under Ruckman’s control—or if their claim would have been heard. This was the era of Jim Crow. The state legislature had previously passed a law limiting when Black people could testify in court.
After Fritz Korth died in 1948, the inventory of his estate listed a one-half interest in the 147.5 acres, “owned jointly by Fritz Korth and wife Eleanor M. Korth, and the Eckford Estate, the Korths owning one-half interest.”
When companies began to lease oil and gas rights in the Eagle Ford, title attorneys sought oil and gas leases from the Korth heirs and the Eckford heirs. Burlington Resources acquired a lease on the Korth heirs’ interest; a company named West 17th Resources acquired leases from some of the Eckford heirs. In subsequent litigation over the title, the Korth heirs claimed that they acquired the Eckford heirs’ interests in the land under two theories: adverse possession and the presumed-grant doctrine. The trial court denied the Korths’ summary judgment on the presumed-grant theory but granted their motion based on adverse possession.
In the first appeal, the San Antonio Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for trial, holding that the Korths had failed to prove adverse possession as a matter of law. Hardaway v. Nixon, 544 S.W.3d 402 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 2017, pet. denied).
Back in the trial court, the Korths added another basis for claiming title – the Dominion Statute, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Sec. 16.029(a). The Dominion Statute says that “it is prima facie evidence” that tile has passed from the holder of record title if “(1) for one or more years during the 25 years preceding the filing of the suite the person holding apparent record title … did not exercise dominion over or pay taxes on the property; and (2) during that period the opposing parties and those whose estate they own have openly exercised dominion over and have asserted a claim to the land and have paid taxes on it annually before becoming delinquent for as long as 25 years.” The case was tried to a jury, which found in favor of the Eckfords. The Korths moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, arguing that they had conclusively proved the elements of adverse possession, the presumed grant theory, and the Dominion Statute. The trial court granted the motion, concluding that the Korths had proved title under the Dominion Statute.
The case went back to the San Antonio court of appeals. It rejected the trial court’s conclusion that the Korths acquired title under the Dominion Statute, but it concluded that the Korths had proven title by adverse possession as a matter of law. The Supreme Court has now refused to hear the case, so the Eckfords’ claim is lost.
Because Korth acquired only a one-half interest in the land and the Eckford descendants continued to own the other half, they were what is known in the law as cotenants. Cotenants share the right to possession and use of their land. Under the law of adverse possession, the person seeking adverse-possession title to the interest of a cotenant must take “clear, unequivocal, and unmistakable” action to put the other cotenant on notice of his intent to repudiate the cotenancy and claim title adversely to the cotenant. The Eckfords argued that the Korths had not done that. The court of appeals held that the 1939 deed from Eliza’s executor to Korth served to put the Eckfords on notice and to “oust” the Eckford cotenants from the land, because it “purported to convey to Fritz Korth a fee simple interest in the entire 147.5-acre property.” This ruling overruled an express finding of the jury that the Korths had not ousted the Eckfords from the cotenancy. The Eckfords pointed out that the 1939 executor’s deed expressly conveyed only “all the right and title” that “Eliza Eckford” had “at her death” in the property. The court of appeals’ opinion does not respond to or mention that fact.
This dispute was clearly over the royalties accruing from the disputed tract. The outcome is another instance of an appellate court overruling a jury verdict.