Opinion Library
Texas court rulings translated into actionable litigation strategy.
This Week's DigestStrategy Category
1447 opinions found
Gutierrez v. Gutierrez
COA04
In Gutierrez v. Gutierrez, the trial court ordered the father to pay $1,417.23 in monthly child support even though the decree referenced lower guideline amounts and stated only that he was underemployed and that above-guideline support was in the children’s best interest. The Fourth Court of Appeals held that because the award varied from the guideline calculation, Texas Family Code § 154.130 required written findings stating the parties’ net resources, the percentage applied, whether guideline support would be unjust or inappropriate, and the specific reasons for the variance. The appellate court concluded the decree’s conclusory recitals were insufficient because they left the father and the court to guess whether the trial court had imputed income, varied upward from a guideline figure, or both. The omission was harmful and reversible, so the court abated the appeal and remanded for entry of the required findings.
Litigation Takeaway
"If a Texas court orders child support above or below the guideline amount, the decree must do more than say 'underemployed' and 'best interest.' Lawyers should make sure the order spells out the guideline calculation, net resources, percentage used, and the specific reasons guideline support would be unjust or inappropriate, or an otherwise defensible support award may be sent back on appeal."
In the Matter of the Marriage of Zachary Rogers and Janeth Rogers and in the Interest of N.R. and J.R., Children
COA05
In Rogers, the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed a divorce decree after the husband tried to challenge child-support and medical-support provisions he had signed and approved as to both form and substance. The court held that, under the consent-judgment and invited-error doctrines, a party who agrees to the substance of a decree generally cannot later complain on appeal about those same provisions absent fraud, collusion, or misrepresentation. The court also rejected the husband’s recusal complaint because the judge he sought to recuse was not the judge who presided over trial or signed the decree, and he showed no harmful error. The judgment was affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"Do not sign a divorce decree 'approved as to form and substance' if you intend to appeal any substantive ruling. If child support, medical support, offsets, or other decree terms remain disputed, preserve the issue on the record, reserve objections clearly, and avoid consent language that will waive appellate review."
In the Interest of K.D.S., a Child
COA05
In In re K.D.S., the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of a father’s SAPCR modification suit, a $5,000 attorney’s-fee award, and an order requiring him to post a $5,000 bond before filing future modification pleadings in the case. The father tried to use the modification proceeding to collaterally attack the underlying 2021 SAPCR order based on alleged service defects and other jurisdictional theories, but the court held those complaints were waived by his prior appearance and answer and could not support a collateral attack on a non-void final order. The court also held that any complaint about the absence of findings of fact and conclusions of law was waived because none were requested. Most significantly, the court approved the prefiling bond as a sanctions measure for repeated frivolous filings, discovery abuse, failure to appear, and refusal to litigate within the rules, explaining that such relief may be imposed without a formal vexatious-litigant finding when supported by the record and tailored to secure costs and attorney’s fees. The father’s due-process, equal-protection, and access-to-courts objections were not preserved, so the sanctions and dismissal were affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"Texas family courts can use their sanctions power—not just the vexatious-litigant statute—to require a bond before future SAPCR modification filings when a party shows a pattern of frivolous pleadings, discovery abuse, and rule-defying conduct. For practitioners, the key is to build a detailed record, tie the bond to anticipated costs and fees, and preserve any constitutional objections with specificity in the trial court."
In the Interest of N.P., a Child
COA12
In In re N.P., the Tyler Court of Appeals affirmed termination of the father’s parental rights under Texas Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(D) and (E). The court analyzed whether the child’s environment and the father’s course of conduct endangered the child, focusing on the mother’s methamphetamine use during pregnancy, the newborn’s positive drug test, the parents’ homelessness, the father’s repeated domestic violence against the mother during pregnancy, and his resulting incarceration. The court held this evidence was legally and factually sufficient to show both endangering conditions or surroundings under subsection (D) and a voluntary, deliberate, and conscious endangering course of conduct under subsection (E), so it affirmed the termination judgment without reaching subsection (P).
Litigation Takeaway
"Prenatal violence, drug exposure at birth, homelessness, and criminal instability can combine to prove endangerment under both Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(D) and (E). For family-law litigators, the lesson is to build a unified safety narrative tying domestic violence, substance abuse, and instability directly to risk to the child."
In re Ganga Thapa
COA03
In In re Ganga Thapa, the Third Court of Appeals held that a grandmother had standing under Texas Family Code section 102.004(a)(2) to seek managing conservatorship because the Department, which had been appointed managing conservator after termination of the parents’ rights, expressly consented to her suit. The trial court had sua sponte found she lacked standing and struck her intervention in the pending SAPCR. The appellate court treated the issue as a pure standing question, applied the rule that an intervenor in a SAPCR generally needs only the same standing required to file the claim as an original suit, and concluded that Thapa’s original-suit standing carried over to intervention. Because the trial court’s contrary legal conclusion was an abuse of discretion and denial of intervention in a SAPCR lacks an adequate appellate remedy, the court conditionally granted mandamus and ordered the trial court to vacate its standing ruling and order striking the intervention.
Litigation Takeaway
"When a grandparent’s standing depends on Family Code section 102.004(a)(2), get the managing conservator’s consent clearly into the record—preferably in a filed written consent tied expressly to the statute. Once that statutory gateway is satisfied, a trial court cannot deny intervention based on generalized discretion; the fight shifts from standing to the merits."
In re Arturo Perez and Texas Materials Group, Inc.
COA04
In this mandamus proceeding, the Fourth Court of Appeals held that a trial court abused its discretion by granting a new trial after a defense take-nothing verdict based on two unsupported reasons: a conclusory factual-sufficiency finding and alleged "empty chair" gamesmanship involving an undesignated traffic flagger. Applying In re Toyota Motor Sales and related mandamus precedent, the court explained that a new-trial order must give legally proper, specific reasons that are actually supported by the record. The court found the trial judge improperly treated a stipulation about right of way as if it proved negligence and proximate cause, and also relied on misconduct findings that were unpreserved and contradicted by the record. Because the verdict winners had no adequate appellate remedy if forced to retry the case, mandamus issued to vacate the new-trial order.
Litigation Takeaway
"A trial court cannot order a do-over based on vague claims that a verdict was against the evidence or that one side engaged in "gamesmanship" unless those reasons are preserved, legally valid, and tied to actual record support. For family-law litigants, this is a strong mandamus blueprint for attacking unsupported new-trial, temporary, or post-judgment rulings that rely on broad fairness or best-interest language without specific evidence and preserved error."
Michael Ray Guajardo v. The State of Texas
COA09
In Michael Ray Guajardo v. The State of Texas, the Beaumont Court of Appeals held that Article 38.37 allows the State to admit prior sexual acts against children even when the defendant committed those acts as a juvenile, so long as the statute’s notice and relevance requirements are met. The defendant argued the statute should be limited to adult conduct and that Rule 403 required exclusion because the evidence was unfairly prejudicial. The court rejected both arguments, reasoning that the statute contains no adulthood limitation and courts may not add one. It further held the extraneous-act evidence was highly probative of sexual interest in children, state of mind, and the propensity inference Article 38.37 expressly permits in child-sex-offense cases, and that this probative value was not substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice. The conviction was affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"In child-related litigation, historical sexual misconduct involving children is not automatically irrelevant or inadmissible just because it occurred when the accused was a juvenile. For family-law cases involving conservatorship, possession, protective orders, or modification, Guajardo is a strong analogy for arguing that older or juvenile-age conduct can still be powerful evidence of present child-safety risk—while opponents should focus on relevance, reliability, remoteness, and Rule 403 fairness rather than a categorical age-based objection."
In re Lugenbuhl, Wheaton, Peck, Rankin, & Hubbard and Todd Crawford
COA01
In this mandamus proceeding, the First Court of Appeals reviewed sanctions imposed after out-of-state defense counsel accepted and used an opposing party’s sensitive personal records supplied by his former fiancé outside formal discovery. The trial court responded with sweeping relief, including disqualification, a large monetary sanction, revocation of pro hac vice status, disciplinary referrals, and a requirement that the attorneys disclose the sanctions order in any future Texas pro hac vice application for ten years. Applying TransAmerican’s just-sanctions framework, the court held that while trial courts have broad authority to punish serious litigation misconduct, non-monetary sanctions must be directly related to the misconduct and no more severe than necessary. The ten-year disclosure requirement failed that test because it operated as a reputational penalty affecting unrelated future cases rather than a case-specific remedy tied to the handling of the records. The court therefore conditionally granted mandamus to vacate that disclosure requirement and denied relief on the remaining challenged rulings.
Litigation Takeaway
"Sensitive records obtained through spouses, ex-partners, or other third parties can expose counsel to disqualification and serious sanctions, but trial courts still cannot impose creative non-monetary sanctions that reach beyond the case and function as long-term professional punishment. In family-law litigation, use this case both to attack improper handling of private records and to challenge sanctions that are not tightly tethered to the actual misconduct."
In the Interest of T.W.B., a Child
COA05
In *In re T.W.B.*, a pro se father appealed a divorce and SAPCR decree challenging rulings on possession, child support, and property division. The Dallas Court of Appeals focused not on the underlying family-law complaints, but on whether the father’s brief complied with Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 38.1. After finding that the first twenty record citations it checked were inaccurate, the court held it was not required to search fifteen volumes of appellate record to locate support for his factual assertions or claimed error. Applying settled law that pro se litigants must follow the same procedural rules as represented parties, and noting that most issues were reviewed for abuse of discretion, the court concluded the father failed to demonstrate reversible error from the record and affirmed the trial court’s decree.
Litigation Takeaway
"On appeal, even potentially valid family-law complaints will fail if the brief does not accurately cite the record. Courts will not act as counsel, reconstruct arguments from a massive record, or relax briefing standards for pro se parties; if you cannot show the exact place where error was preserved and proved, affirmance is likely."
In the Interest of E.K.S., a Child
COA05
In this Dallas SAPCR appeal, the mother challenged only the visitation language in a final order appointing DFPS permanent managing conservator and giving her supervised possession "at a date, time and location as arranged and agreed" with the Department. The court reviewed the order for abuse of discretion and focused on the child’s best interest, rejecting the argument that the Family Code always requires a fallback schedule with fixed dates and times. Because the record showed unresolved substance abuse, incomplete services, an eleven-month lapse in drug testing, inconsistent visitation, transportation problems, and an out-of-state placement requiring DFPS oversight, the court held the open-ended supervised-access provision was not arbitrary or unreasonable and affirmed the order.
Litigation Takeaway
"An "as arranged and agreed" visitation provision can survive appeal if the record shows why flexibility is necessary and tied to the child’s best interest. If you want to defend a non-specific supervised-access clause, build evidence of safety concerns, instability, logistics, and a reliable supervising conservator; if you want to attack one, preserve complaints that it is indefinite, unenforceable, or effectively delegates control over access without a workable minimum schedule."