Opinion Library
Texas court rulings translated into actionable litigation strategy.
This Week's DigestStrategy Category
1447 opinions found
In the Interest of E.A., a Child
COA05
In In the Interest of E.A., a Child, the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed denial of a bill of review seeking to set aside a default divorce decree. The former wife argued she was never served, which would excuse her from proving the usual bill-of-review elements, but the court held the record did not conclusively prove nonservice. The court relied on the substituted-service order and return, her admission that she lived at the service address, and contemporaneous evidence suggesting she knew about the divorce papers. Because nonservice was not established, she had to satisfy the traditional bill-of-review requirements, including showing that the judgment remained in place due to official mistake and without any fault or negligence on her part. The court held the failure to obtain a signed written order granting new trial within plenary power did not justify relief on this record, especially where counsel did not secure the signature and no direct appeal was pursued.
Litigation Takeaway
"If you want to overturn a default family-law judgment years later, a bare claim of nonservice is not enough when the service record and surrounding evidence point the other way. And if a judge orally grants a new trial, do not assume that saves the case—a written signed order must be entered before plenary power expires, or the original judgment stands."
Tutt v. State
COA02
In Tutt v. State, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals affirmed a domestic-violence conviction after rejecting a hearsay challenge to the complainant’s on-scene statements and a sufficiency challenge to habitual-offender enhancement proof. Officers forced entry after a distress call and scream, then found the complainant frightened, crying, and bearing fresh cuts. The court held that her statements to the responding officer that Tutt had cut her arm and choked her were admissible as excited utterances because the circumstances showed a startling event, close temporal proximity, ongoing stress, and statements directly related to the assault. The court also held that, under the totality of the evidence, the State sufficiently linked Tutt to two prior Missouri felony convictions for enhancement purposes. The judgment was affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"For family-law cases involving family violence, on-scene statements to police, 911 narratives, and similar contemporaneous disclosures are far more likely to come in when you can show immediacy, fear, fresh injuries, and little time for reflection. Build or attack the evidentiary mosaic—timing, demeanor, corroborating texts, photos, dispatch records, and officer observations—because those surrounding facts often determine whether violence evidence shapes custody, protective-order, and divorce outcomes."
Lopez v. Inzhutova
COA07
In Lopez v. Inzhutova, the Amarillo Court of Appeals affirmed a final protective order after the respondent, appearing pro se, failed to adequately brief any appellate issue. Lopez challenged the order on due-process, protective-order-violation, and cumulative-error grounds, but even after being notified that his original brief violated Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 38.1(i) and being given a chance to amend, his revised brief still lacked developed argument, meaningful application of authority to the facts, and sufficient legal support. The court held that pro se litigants are held to the same briefing standards as represented parties and that inadequate briefing waives appellate complaints. Because Lopez presented no issue in a form the court could review, the court affirmed the protective order without reaching the merits.
Litigation Takeaway
"On appeal, preservation is not enough—your brief must clearly connect the law, the record, and the complained-of ruling. Family-law litigants, including pro se parties, can lose potentially viable complaints outright if they submit conclusory arguments, unsupported citations, or undeveloped analysis. For appellees, Rule 38.1 waiver can be the fastest path to affirmance when the opposing brief is defective."
In re James Robert Lawson, IV
COA03
In In re James Robert Lawson, IV, the Third Court of Appeals held that a Bell County trial court lost jurisdiction to act on a child-support enforcement matter once the obligor filed a notice of removal in federal court and filed that notice in state court under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(d). Even though the enforcement hearing proceeded and the trial court later signed a capias for the father’s arrest, the court of appeals concluded the state court was barred from proceeding at all during the period between removal and remand. Relying on federal removal law and Texas precedent treating post-removal state-court orders as void, the court held the capias and related orders were legal nullities, not merely erroneous rulings. Because the challenged order was void and involved confinement-related process in a child-support enforcement case, habeas relief was proper, and the court conditionally granted relief directing the trial court to vacate the capias and related orders.
Litigation Takeaway
"When a notice of removal is filed in state court, the family court must stop immediately. Any contempt, capias, enforcement, or temporary order signed before remand is vulnerable as void, so practitioners should shift their efforts to federal remand practice rather than asking the state court to proceed anyway."
In the Interest of D.W., D.B., and J.B., Children
COA02
In this SAPCR appeal, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals dismissed for want of jurisdiction because the mother filed her notice of appeal nearly nine months after the final order was signed. The court held that a final SAPCR order is subject to the accelerated appellate timetable, so the notice of appeal was due within 20 days under Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure 26.1(b) and 28.1(b). Because no timely notice of appeal or motion for extension was filed, and neither the mother nor appointed counsel responded to the court’s jurisdictional inquiry, the appeal was not perfected and the court lacked jurisdiction. The court also noted that pro se status does not excuse compliance with appellate deadlines.
Litigation Takeaway
"In Texas family-law cases, a final SAPCR order triggers an accelerated appeal, and missing the 20-day notice-of-appeal deadline can permanently forfeit appellate review. Lawyers must classify the order correctly, calendar the deadline from the signing date, and make sure responsibility for the appeal is clear—especially when appointed counsel, successor counsel, or pro se filings create confusion."
Darren Marcel Hanson v. The State of Texas
COA05
In Hanson, the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed a capital-murder conviction arising from the brutal beating and robbery of an elderly victim. The court held the evidence was legally sufficient because the defendant’s own admissions, the victim’s extreme injuries, the victim’s vulnerability, and the surrounding robbery evidence allowed the jury to infer intent to kill. The court also rejected the defendant’s hearsay challenge to the victim’s identification statements, not on the merits, but because the complaint was not preserved: a pretrial hearsay objection did not suffice when substantially similar evidence later came in without a renewed or running objection. Finally, the court held that a variance between the oral sentence and written judgment did not require remand and instead modified the judgment to correct clerical error before affirming as modified.
Litigation Takeaway
"The family-law crossover lesson is preservation. In abuse-driven custody, protective-order, termination, and divorce trials, a pretrial hearsay objection is not enough if the same statement later comes in through another witness or exhibit without a renewed or expressly running objection. Trial lawyers must preserve evidentiary complaints with precision every time the evidence is offered—or risk waiving a potentially strong appellate issue."
In the Interest of W.L.G., a Child
COA14
In this SAPCR appeal, the appellant moved to voluntarily dismiss the appeal under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 42.1(a)(1). The Fourteenth Court of Appeals did not address the underlying parent-child dispute or review the merits; it simply applied Rule 42.1(a)(1), found no reason to deny the request, granted the motion, and dismissed the appeal. Because the appeal was dismissed rather than decided on the merits, the trial court’s August 29, 2025 judgment remained in effect and undisturbed.
Litigation Takeaway
"If you voluntarily dismiss a family-law appeal, you usually end appellate review and leave the trial court’s order fully in place. In custody and other SAPCR cases, that means conservatorship, possession, support, and related rulings continue to control unless changed through some separate procedural vehicle."
In the Interest of A.M., a Child
COA02
The Fort Worth Court of Appeals affirmed termination of Father’s parental rights because Father challenged only one of three predicate grounds under Texas Family Code section 161.001(b)(1)—subsection (N)—while leaving unchallenged the trial court’s findings under subsections (B) and (C), and he also did not challenge the best-interest finding. Applying settled termination law, the court held that one unchallenged predicate ground plus an unchallenged best-interest finding is enough to support affirmance, so reversal was unavailable regardless of Father’s attack on subsection (N). The court also rejected Father’s due-process complaint about alleged statutory and service-plan irregularities because he did not preserve that complaint in the trial court and, on appeal, failed to support it with meaningful authority, analysis, or record citations, resulting in waiver.
Litigation Takeaway
"In any family-law appeal, you must challenge every independent basis supporting the judgment and separately attack best interest when required; otherwise, the appellate court can affirm without reaching your preferred issue. Just as important, procedural and due-process complaints must be raised in the trial court and then fully briefed on appeal with authority and record support."
In re Brittany Hilbert
COA05
In In re Brittany Hilbert, a pro se relator sought mandamus relief in a conservatorship-related case, asking the Dallas Court of Appeals to undo post-hearing orders affecting due process, attorney’s fees, and interim conservatorship or possession. The court did not reach those substantive complaints because the petition failed to comply with multiple mandatory requirements of Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 52, including required sections, a proper certification, an appendix, and a sworn or certified mandamus record. The court also found that the petition and appendix contained unredacted sensitive data in violation of Rule 9.9. Because these procedural defects were dispositive, the court denied mandamus relief and struck the filing without addressing the merits.
Litigation Takeaway
"In emergency family-law appellate practice, procedure can decide the case before the merits ever matter. A mandamus petition must strictly comply with Rule 52, include a proper certified or sworn record, and be fully redacted under Rule 9.9; otherwise even strong due-process or custody arguments may never be heard."
Jose Luis Espinoza v. The State of Texas
COA13
In Jose Luis Espinoza v. The State of Texas, the Thirteenth Court of Appeals affirmed convictions for continuous sexual abuse of a young child and two indecency-with-a-child counts. The key dispute was whether the State proved the continuous-abuse statute’s thirty-or-more-day duration element when one child could not give precise dates and the defense argued the allegations were too vague and fabricated amid a family feud over the grandmother’s estate and residence. The court applied standard legal-sufficiency review under Jackson v. Virginia and held that exact dates were unnecessary. It focused on whether a rational factfinder could infer repeated abuse over the required span from the testimony. B.H.’s testimony that Espinoza touched her genitals over clothing twenty to thirty times over about a year was enough by itself to satisfy the duration requirement, even though P.P.’s timeline was less precise. The court also rejected Espinoza’s double-jeopardy, outcry, extraneous-act, medical-records, expert-testimony, and cumulative-error complaints, treating the defense’s fabrication and credibility themes as issues for the jury rather than grounds for reversal.
Litigation Takeaway
"For Texas family litigators, Espinoza is a strong crossover case on abuse-proof sufficiency: a child’s inability to give calendar-specific dates does not defeat abuse allegations if the testimony describes repeated conduct over an identifiable span. It is especially useful in custody, modification, protective-order, and termination litigation to counter the argument that abuse claims are too vague to credit. The case also shows that outcry and SANE-related evidence can survive appellate attack when properly framed, and that motive-to-fabricate theories tied to property or inheritance disputes usually create fact issues, not automatic legal wins."