Opinion Library
Texas court rulings translated into actionable litigation strategy.
This Week's DigestStrategy Category
1447 opinions found
Emanuel Ochoa v. The State of Texas
COA02
In Emanuel Ochoa v. The State of Texas, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals, on remand from the Court of Criminal Appeals, considered whether admitting a 14-year-old’s involuntary confession was harmless constitutional error. The court applied Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 44.2(a), emphasizing that the question was not whether other evidence, including DNA evidence, could support the verdict, but whether the appellate court could say beyond a reasonable doubt that the confession did not contribute to conviction or punishment. Because the recorded confession was the State’s most powerful and complete narrative of guilt and likely shaped how the jury viewed all remaining evidence, the court held the error was harmful, reversed the convictions, and remanded the case.
Litigation Takeaway
"When one dramatic piece of improperly admitted evidence becomes the centerpiece of the case, harmless-error arguments become much harder to win on appeal. In family-law cases, preserve objections and build a record showing how the challenged evidence likely drove the factfinder’s decision, especially when it supplies the main narrative of alleged misconduct."
GoodLeap, LLC v. Preston McGrew
COA12
In GoodLeap, LLC v. McGrew, the Tyler Court of Appeals reversed a default judgment on restricted appeal because the face of the record did not show strict compliance with Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 107. The plaintiff had obtained a no-answer default after purported certified-mail service, but the return of service omitted required information, including the process server’s name and other mandatory formalities such as signature, verification, or compliant Rule 107(e) declaration language. Applying the settled rule that no presumptions favor valid service in a restricted appeal, the court mechanically reviewed the record, held the defective return meant service was invalid and personal jurisdiction never attached, and remanded the case for further proceedings.
Litigation Takeaway
"Before taking or enforcing any default judgment—especially in divorce, SAPCR, modification, or enforcement cases—do a line-by-line Rule 107 audit of the filed return. Actual notice will not save a defective return, and even a seemingly final default judgment can be undone on restricted appeal if the face of the record does not strictly show valid service."
Schwarz v. Schwarz Webb Holdings, Ltd.
COA04
In Schwarz, siblings who co-owned an approximately 8,000-acre ranch reached a Rule 11 settlement in open court partitioning the property, with the agreement tied to a marked exhibit and detailed on the record by share number, acreage, frontage adjustments, access rights, and transfer of an undivided test-track interest. After one sibling refused to proceed, the others sought specific performance. The Fourth Court of Appeals held the agreement satisfied the statute of frauds because the transcript and incorporated exhibit together supplied the means to identify the land with reasonable certainty, even though a later survey was needed to prepare metes-and-bounds descriptions. The court also rejected indefiniteness and ambiguity challenges, concluding the material terms were fixed and the later survey was merely implementation, so the trial court properly enforced the settlement and entered final partition judgment.
Litigation Takeaway
"If a Rule 11 settlement involving land clearly ties the deal to an exhibit and states the key property terms on the record—who gets which tract, acreage, boundary swaps, access, and any undivided interests—a later statute-of-frauds or ambiguity attack is unlikely to succeed. In family-law property cases, build a complete record at the time of settlement because a survey can fill in technical legal descriptions later, but it cannot rescue missing essential terms."
In the Interest of J.A.V. and J.B.V.
COA04
In a termination-by-modification case, the mother argued the termination order was defective because it omitted the findings required by Texas Family Code § 161.001(f) and (g). The Fourth Court of Appeals treated the omission as a formal drafting defect rather than a failure to make the findings, because the trial court later signed supplemental findings satisfying the statute. The court held it could modify the judgment to incorporate those supplemental findings, rejected the argument that the omission alone required reversal, and affirmed the termination judgment as modified.
Litigation Takeaway
"Not every missing statutory finding in a family-law judgment requires reversal. If the trial court actually made the required findings and the record contains signed supplemental findings, the court of appeals may treat the omission as clerical or formal and modify the order to conform to the record. Trial lawyers should scrub final orders for mandatory findings before signature, and appellate lawyers should evaluate whether a facial defect is truly substantive or can be cured by modification."
In the Matter of the Marriage of Chadwick Lyle Soma and Valerie Lynn Soma
COA12
In Soma v. Soma, the husband sought reimbursement in the divorce for community funds used to build a house on land owned by the wife’s parents. The court held that proof of money spent was not enough. Because the house was built on third-party land, the husband had to prove the marital estate actually owned a legally cognizable reimbursement claim and provide competent evidence of its value. The evidence was disputed on whether the in-laws had promised to convey acreage, whether the house was part of the realty, and whether any reimbursement claim could be reliably valued. Deferring to the trial court’s credibility and valuation determinations, the Tyler Court of Appeals held the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying reimbursement and affirmed the overall property division.
Litigation Takeaway
"If spouses improve land owned by parents or in-laws, do not assume the divorce court will reimburse the money spent. To recover, you must prove the marital estate owns an enforceable claim, not just that community funds were used, and you must present clear title, fixture, and valuation evidence. Informal family promises, tax filings, and receipts alone may not be enough."
In re T.A.S.D.
COA04
In In re T.A.S.D., the relator sought mandamus relief arguing a Jim Wells County trial court’s initial custody order was void because Texas lacked UCCJEA home-state jurisdiction. The Fourth Court of Appeals compared the relator’s proof to Family Code section 152.201(a)(1), which asks whether Texas was the child’s home state within six months before the SAPCR was filed, not simply whether the child lived in Texas during the immediately preceding months. Because the mandamus record did not establish that Texas lacked home-state jurisdiction under that six-month lookback, the relator failed to show the order was void or that mandamus relief was warranted. The court denied mandamus, denied temporary relief as moot, and struck the petition and record for failing to redact a minor’s identifying information.
Litigation Takeaway
"If you want to attack a Texas custody order as void under the UCCJEA, you need a precise residence timeline and a mandamus record that disproves Texas home-state jurisdiction under the statute’s six-month lookback. Showing only that the child was out of Texas for several months before filing is not enough, and sloppy appellate redaction can create additional problems."
In re Feliciano Sanchez and Leticia Sanchez
COA04
In this original proceeding, the Fourth Court of Appeals held that parties could not use a new injunction and declaratory-judgment suit in Medina County to stop enforcement of an Atascosa County foreclosure order by arguing the property was protected homestead. The Atascosa court had already decided the exemption issue and had jurisdiction over the parties, the case, and the foreclosure remedy. The appellate court explained that even if the foreclosure court got the homestead question wrong, that would make the order merely erroneous or voidable, not void. Because only void judgments may be collaterally attacked, the Medina County suit was an impermissible collateral attack, the temporary injunction was void, and mandamus relief was proper to require the trial court to dissolve the injunction and dismiss the later-filed suit.
Litigation Takeaway
"If a court with jurisdiction has already ruled that property may be sold or foreclosed despite a homestead claim, the remedy is direct attack in that case—not a new lawsuit in another county. In family-law enforcement disputes involving residences, owelty liens, equalization liens, or other real-property remedies, preserve the homestead issue in the original court and pursue appeal, mandamus, bill of review, or other recognized direct remedies rather than trying to relitigate the issue through a collateral injunction suit."
Wilma Elder and Timothy Elder v. Korinthia Monique Miller
COA14
In a malpractice suit, the trial court granted a TCPA motion dismissing the defendant’s counterclaims and later signed an order awarding the plaintiffs $8,775 in mandatory TCPA attorney’s fees. Although that order called itself a “final judgment” as to the fee award, the plaintiffs’ own malpractice claim remained pending. The Fourteenth Court of Appeals applied Lehmann and held the fee order was still interlocutory because it neither actually disposed of all claims and all parties nor clearly and unequivocally stated that it did so. As a result, Rule 329b’s plenary-power deadlines never started, the trial court retained jurisdiction, and it erred by denying a later summary-judgment motion for lack of jurisdiction. The court reversed and remanded.
Litigation Takeaway
"In family cases, a fee or sanctions order is not truly final just because it uses the words “final judgment.” If live claims remain, the order is usually interlocutory unless it disposes of all parties and claims or contains unmistakable Lehmann-finality language. Do not assume plenary power has expired after a piecemeal ruling; check for unresolved issues, and use severance or precise drafting if true finality is intended."
In re Dollar Tree Stores, Inc.
COA14
In this mandamus proceeding, Dollar Tree challenged discovery orders requiring statewide and nationwide documents and corporate-representative testimony about allegedly similar incidents, understaffing, shrink, and security practices at other stores. The Fourteenth Court of Appeals held the requests were facially overbroad under Texas Rules of Civil Procedure 192.3 and 192.4 because they were not properly limited to substantially similar incidents within a reasonable temporal, geographic, and operational scope, and the trial court’s “similarly situated” label did not cure the defect. The court also held Rule 199.2(b)(1) does not allow a party to obtain the same overbroad information through corporate-representative deposition topics. Because the harm from compelled overbroad discovery cannot be adequately remedied on appeal, the court conditionally granted mandamus relief.
Litigation Takeaway
"If discovery asks for 'all similar incidents,' 'all complaints,' or records from multiple locations without a tight tie to the pleaded issues, a defined time frame, and a reasonable geographic or operational limit, it is vulnerable to objection and mandamus. In family-law cases, this opinion is a strong roadmap both for defeating fishing-expedition discovery and for drafting narrower comparator requests that are more likely to survive challenge."
In Re The Commitment of Gerald Lee Ricks
COA01
In this Texas SVP commitment appeal, the dispute was whether Gerald Ricks had a statutory “behavioral abnormality” making him likely to commit future predatory sexual violence, not whether he was a repeat sexually violent offender. The First Court of Appeals held the evidence was sufficient because the State tied Ricks’s repeated child-sex offenses, relapse while on supervision and in treatment, continued attraction to female children, minimization, and inconsistent testimony to a forensic psychiatrist’s opinion that he remained high risk. The court also rejected Ricks’s complaint that he was barred from questioning the State’s expert about the State’s withdrawal of another expert, holding the issue was not preserved and, even if preserved, no reversible error was shown.
Litigation Takeaway
"For family-law cases involving abuse or child-safety concerns, past misconduct can support present-risk restrictions when it is paired with relapse, treatment failure, minimization, ongoing deviant interests, and qualified expert testimony connecting those facts to future danger. Just as important, if a court limits cross-examination of an opposing expert, make a precise record and offer of proof or the complaint may be lost on appeal."