Opinion Library
Texas court rulings translated into actionable litigation strategy.
This Week's DigestStrategy Category
1229 opinions found
In the Interest of R.G. III, a Child
COA02
In In re R.G. III, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals affirmed termination of the father’s parental rights after concluding the evidence was legally and factually sufficient under Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(D) and (E), and sufficient to support best interest under § 161.001(b)(2). The court analyzed the case as a pattern-endangerment record: the father repeatedly used methamphetamine, committed domestic violence, had a history of criminal instability and incarceration, and knowingly left the child with the mother despite knowing of her repeated methamphetamine relapses. The court also emphasized the dangerous living conditions surrounding the child, including motel living, lack of school enrollment, poor supervision, and the child’s own positive methamphetamine test. Rejecting the father’s minimization and alternative explanations, the court held that the combined evidence showed both endangering surroundings and endangering conduct, and that the same proof also established termination was in the child’s best interest.
Litigation Takeaway
"Texas courts will treat substance abuse, domestic violence, criminal instability, educational neglect, and failure to protect from a known drug-using parent as a unified endangerment pattern. For litigators, the lesson is to build or rebut the case through cumulative proof of knowledge, relapse history, protective failures, and the child’s concrete exposure to danger—not isolated incidents or last-minute claims of improvement."
Falah Algaissi v. Taima Abu Qamer
COA02
In Algaissi v. Abu Qamer, the husband appealed a final divorce decree, challenging conservatorship, property division, and fraud findings. The Fort Worth Court of Appeals held that his challenges failed for two independent reasons: he did not timely secure the reporter’s record, so the court presumed the evidence supported the trial court’s rulings, and he personally signed the decree as “approved and consented to as to both form and substance,” which made the decree an agreed judgment. Applying invited-error and agreed-judgment principles, the court concluded he could not attack the very provisions he had consented to absent proof that his consent was not genuine. The decree was affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"Do not treat decree signature language as boilerplate. If a client may appeal, avoid signing a divorce decree as approved or consented to as to both form and substance, because that can waive challenges to custody, property, and fraud rulings. Also, timely secure the reporter’s record—without it, most family-law abuse-of-discretion complaints are effectively lost."
Patrick McNeal v. The State of Texas
COA05
In McNeal v. State, the Dallas Court of Appeals considered whether a defendant who pleaded guilty under a plea bargain could pursue an appeal after receiving the exact agreed sentence. Applying Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 25.2(a)(2), the court treated the case as a restricted plea-bargain appeal and examined whether any exception allowed review. The record showed no written pretrial motion ruled on before trial, no trial-court permission to appeal, and no statutory authorization for the appeal. Because the trial court’s certification stated McNeal had no right of appeal and the record supported that certification, Rule 25.2(d) required dismissal. The court therefore dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction without reaching the merits.
Litigation Takeaway
"When a related criminal case resolves through a negotiated plea and the defendant receives the bargained-for sentence, an appeal may be barred unless counsel preserved a written pretrial issue, obtained permission to appeal, or fits within a statute authorizing review. For family-law cases involving family violence or other criminal overlap, do not build strategy around the assumption that a later criminal appeal will undo the collateral effects of the plea."
Linh Hong Dang v. The State of Texas
COA05
In Dang v. State, the Dallas Court of Appeals held that a party cannot complain on appeal about excluded testimony unless the party made an offer of proof or the substance of the testimony was otherwise apparent from the record. The appellant argued the trial court wrongly excluded testimony about alleged law-enforcement pressure on the complainants’ mother, her alleged desire to pay attorney’s fees, and impeachment evidence about inconsistent timing of the alleged abuse. The court concluded the first two complaints were not preserved because counsel did not make an offer of proof and the missing testimony was not clear from context. On the timing issue, the court held the trial court acted within its discretion because counsel failed to satisfy the Rule 613 predicate for impeachment by prior inconsistent statement. With no preserved evidentiary error, the cumulative-error argument also failed, and the judgments were affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"If the judge excludes testimony, do not stop at 'objection sustained.' Make an immediate offer of proof, state why the evidence is admissible, and, if using prior inconsistent statements, lay the full Rule 613 foundation. In family-law cases built on credibility, bias, coaching, motive, or inconsistent timelines, an unpreserved exclusion issue is usually dead on appeal."
Ex parte Brayden Channing Coin
COA02
In Ex parte Brayden Channing Coin, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals affirmed denial of Article 11.072 habeas relief from a guilty plea to sexual assault. Coin argued his lawyer was ineffective for failing to investigate whether the charged conduct occurred before he turned seventeen, which would have undermined adult-court jurisdiction under Penal Code section 8.07(b), and he also claimed that bad advice made his plea involuntary. The court held those claims failed because the habeas court was entitled to credit trial counsel’s evidence that Coin personally admitted post-seventeen assaults, that counsel discussed the significance of his age, and that Coin chose a probation-focused plea strategy. Given those supported credibility findings, additional investigation into conflicting timing evidence such as the Fortnite release issue would not have changed the result, a jurisdictional challenge was not shown to be meritorious, and Coin could not show under Hill v. Lockhart that he would have rejected the plea and gone to trial.
Litigation Takeaway
"Credibility findings can decide the whole case. If the trial court credits evidence that a party was advised of the key issue, understood the stakes, and made a strategic choice anyway, later claims of bad advice, poor investigation, or involuntary agreement usually fail. For family lawyers, the lesson is to build a record of admissions, advice given, informed consent, and multiple timeline anchors so the trial court’s findings will survive appeal."
Hill v. State
COA10
In Hill v. State, the Waco Court of Appeals rejected the defendant’s unpreserved facial constitutional challenge to the continuous-violence statute and held the jury charge properly tracked the statute, including its non-unanimity language and disjunctive culpable mental states. The court also addressed a mismatch between the written judgment and the appellate record: although the judgment said the enhancement paragraph was “found not true,” the record showed the jury found it true. Applying Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 43.2(b), the court reformed the judgment to make the record speak the truth and affirmed as modified.
Litigation Takeaway
"For family-law litigators, the key lesson is twofold: preserve appellate complaints precisely in the trial court, and always compare the signed order to the actual record. When a written judgment or order misstates what the court or jury actually found, appellate reformation may be available if the record conclusively shows the correct ruling."
Jonathan Edward Norton v. The State of Texas
COA10
In Norton v. State, the appellant challenged a six-year prison sentence imposed after revocation of community supervision as grossly disproportionate under the Eighth Amendment and article I, section 13 of the Texas Constitution. The Tenth Court of Appeals did not reach the merits because Norton never objected when sentence was pronounced and never raised the constitutional complaint in a motion for new trial or other post-trial filing. Applying Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 33.1(a)(1) and preservation authorities, the court held that constitutional disproportionality complaints are waived unless timely and specifically presented to the trial court. The revocation judgment and sentence were affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"If you believe a ruling or punishment is constitutionally excessive, say so in the trial court—clearly, specifically, and on the record. Norton is a preservation case: even serious constitutional complaints, including disproportionality, due-process, or punitive-sanctions arguments, can be lost on appeal if counsel does not object at the hearing and, when appropriate, re-urge the issue in a post-judgment motion."
In the Interest of J.S.C. and J.M.C., Children
COA10
The Waco Court of Appeals affirmed termination of Father’s parental rights under Texas Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(E), holding the evidence was legally and factually sufficient to show Father engaged in his own endangering course of conduct. Father argued the case turned on whether he knew about Mother’s drug use and neglect, but the court rejected that framing because subsection (E) was supported by Father’s independent conduct: repeated incarceration, methamphetamine use and related criminal charges, avoidance of the Department due to active warrants, refusal to begin services, and prolonged absence from the children’s lives. The court also rejected Father’s argument that conduct before formal paternity adjudication could not count, concluding that knowledge of paternity is not required when the parent had reason to believe he was the father and avoided involvement. The termination judgment was affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"In endangerment cases, courts look at the parent’s overall pattern of instability—not just one bad act and not just the other parent’s misconduct. Repeated jail exposure, drug use, avoidance of CPS, failure to pursue paternity, and staying absent from the child’s life can together support termination and, by analogy, strong conservatorship and possession restrictions in other family-law cases."
In the Matter of the Marriage of Michael Adam Nelson and Jhoelayne Paixao Nelson and in the Interest of M.P.N. and M.A.P.N., Children
COA13
After the parties’ divorce decree was signed, one side sought sanctions and the other later filed a petition to modify the parent-child relationship. The trial court ruled on the sanctions dispute, but the modification case remained pending. Applying Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., the Thirteenth Court of Appeals held the sanctions order was not final because it did not dispose of all pending claims and parties, and it lacked clear and unequivocal finality language. Because no statute authorized an interlocutory appeal from the sanctions order, the court dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
Litigation Takeaway
"Do not assume a post-divorce sanctions order can be appealed by itself. In family-law cases, appellate finality depends on whether all live claims in the case have been resolved, including later-filed modification proceedings. Before filing a notice of appeal, check the full docket and consider severance if you need a stand-alone final judgment."
Rodriguez v. State
COA11
In Rodriguez v. State, the Eastland Court of Appeals held that Article 38.37, section 2(b) permits evidence of an extraneous child-sex offense even when the extraneous victim is a different child from the complainant in the charged case. The defendant, charged with indecency with a child involving G.T., challenged the admission of testimony from K.N. about an earlier alleged sexual assault, arguing the evidence was too dissimilar, unfairly prejudicial, and unconstitutional under Article 38.37. The court relied on prior authority, especially Wishert, to reject any same-victim limitation in the statute, held that the statute survived both facial and as-applied constitutional challenges because of its procedural safeguards, and concluded the trial court acted within its discretion after conducting the required hearing and Rule 403 balancing. The conviction was affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"For family-law litigators, Rodriguez is a strong crossover authority for the proposition that alleged sexual misconduct toward one child can be relevant to assessing risk to another child. In custody, modification, and protective-order cases, do not assume allegations lose force just because the child in suit is different; instead, expect courts to consider cross-child conduct as part of a broader safety and protective-capacity analysis, while still litigating reliability, corroboration, and proportionality."