Court Filings

The First District of Texas granted Radial Power Asset, LLC’s unopposed motion to dismiss its appeal after the parties settled all disputes and the settlement was finalized. Because the appeal became moot and the appellee did not oppose dismissal, the court vacated the trial court’s judgment, dismissed the appeal, and denied as moot any other pending motions. The court relied on precedent and the appellate rules that require vacatur and dismissal when a case becomes moot.

The First District of Texas affirmed Jason Jermaine Armster’s 55-year murder conviction and $10,000 fine. Armster challenged three rulings: denial of his motion to suppress a custodial statement, admission of testimony about past bad acts, and the trial court’s refusal to give a sudden-passion instruction at punishment. The court found the statement admissible because Armster himself reinitiated conversation after invoking counsel and then knowingly waived his right; any error admitting extraneous-act testimony was harmless given overwhelming evidence; and the record did not minimally support sudden passion as an affirmative mitigating finding.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s order terminating Mother’s and Father’s parental rights to two children, Timothy (11) and Richard (5), and appointing the Department of Family and Protective Services as permanent managing conservator. The parents raised multiple challenges, including untimely trial, insufficiency of evidence on best interest and statutory predicate grounds, ineffective assistance of counsel, and a constitutional strict-scrutiny claim. The court found the trial was timely, the evidence was legally and factually sufficient to support termination and best-interest findings, Father received effective counsel, and existing procedural and substantive protections were adequate to address his constitutional complaint.

The First Court of Appeals denied a pro se petition for a writ of mandamus filed by Ryen Michelle Staggers seeking to vacate and stay enforcement of a March 27, 2026 temporary order from a Harris County family-court case. The appellate court concluded Staggers failed to provide the mandatory mandamus record or appendix that includes a certified copy of the challenged trial court order, as required by the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure. Because the court could not review the order, it found she had not shown entitlement to mandamus relief and therefore denied the petition and dismissed pending motions as moot.

The First District of Texas denied a pro se petitioner Ryen Michelle Staggers' request for a writ of mandamus and emergency stay. Staggers asked this Court to stay and vacate a March 27, 2026 trial-court order in an underlying child‑protection case, alleging extrinsic fraud and due-process violations. The appellate court declined relief because the mandamus record and appendix did not include the required certified copy of the March 27, 2026 order, preventing review of her claims. The court therefore denied the petition and dismissed any pending motions as moot.

The First District of Texas denied a mandamus petition filed by May Kue and Youssef Ezzat challenging a county court’s final judgment in an eviction case. The relators asked the court to issue an emergency stay blocking a writ of possession, further proceedings in the underlying eviction, and release of registry funds. The Court of Appeals denied the petition and all related emergency motions and stay requests without granting the requested relief.

The Texas Court of Appeals (First District) denied Kevin Henry's petition for a writ of mandamus challenging a trial court order that granted an opponent's motion to compel discovery in a pending civil case (Derrick Dees v. Kevin Henry et al.). The appellate court concluded mandamus relief was not warranted and dismissed any outstanding motions as moot. The opinion is a short per curiam memorandum without extended factual or legal discussion, and it leaves the trial court's order intact.

The First Court of Appeals denied a petition for writ of mandamus and an emergency stay filed by Heather J. Taylor and Mad Hat Maven, LLC. Relators had challenged a district court's March 3, 2026 order allowing substituted service of subpoenas and a March 31, 2026 enforcement order compelling their depositions and production of documents. The appellate court declined to disturb the trial court’s orders and refused to stay the depositions scheduled for April 9, 2026, effectively leaving the trial court’s discovery and enforcement directives in place.

The Texas First Court of Appeals denied a petition for a writ of mandamus filed by Anant Kumar Tripati challenging a trial court order that granted a motion to dismiss in an underlying suit against YESCARE Corp. and others. The appellate court concluded mandamus relief was not warranted and dismissed any pending motions as moot. The opinion is brief and issued per curiam, listing the underlying district-court cause and judge but providing no extended reasoning or factual detail.

The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s dismissal of Esdras Pineda’s suit against his workers’ compensation carrier, National Specialty Insurance Company, and remanded for further proceedings. The trial court had granted the insurer’s plea to the jurisdiction, finding Pineda’s pro se petition did not show he exhausted administrative remedies or identify the appeals-panel decisions that aggrieved him. The appeals court held the defects in Pineda’s petition were curable because the insurer’s plea and attached evidence showed Pineda had appealed the administrative law judge’s decisions to the appeals panel and that the appeals panel allowed those decisions to become final, so Pineda should be allowed to amend his pleadings.

The First District of Texas dismissed appellant Dayanara Danae Baker’s attempted appeal of a 2010 prostitution conviction because the notice of appeal was filed fifteen years after judgment and the trial-court certification from 2010 stated she had no right to appeal. Baker, pro se, also sought appointment of counsel and asked the court to consider waiving fees to aid access to employment, housing, and records, but the court explained an untimely appeal is not a proper vehicle for fee relief. Because the court lacked jurisdiction over the belated appeal, the appeal and pending motions were dismissed as moot.

The First District of Texas affirmed the trial court’s rulings in favor of the lender (Cardinal) and the appraisal company (CFour). Gaston bought a house that had a septic tank and well, but the appraisal incorrectly listed public water and sewer. The trial court granted summary judgment to Cardinal and CFour and Cardinal later nonsuited its third-party and cross claims. The appellate court held Gaston failed to raise a fact issue on negligent misrepresentation because she could not justifiably rely on the appraisal: seller disclosures, FHA/HUD warnings, the appraisal’s stated intended user (the lender), and Gaston’s own home inspection undercut her reliance claim. The court also held the nonsuit was effective when filed and did not prejudice other parties.

The Court of Appeals considered an appeal from a trial court order that granted Tonya Hill’s plea to the jurisdiction and dismissed Steven and Rayma Benedict’s petition to modify the parent-child relationship. Because the trial court’s order did not address Hill’s separate request for attorney’s fees and expressly stated it was making no ruling on relief requested by Hill, the appellate court found the order’s finality ambiguous. The appellate court therefore abated and remanded the case to the trial court for clarification or entry of a final order and set a deadline for supplemental records to be filed in the appellate court.

The Texas Third Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s dismissal under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 91a of a private-nuisance lawsuit filed by nearby landowners seeking injunctive relief and damages to stop construction and operation of a planned 200-megawatt lithium-ion battery storage facility on neighboring property. The court held the landowners’ pleading—alleging imminent risk from thermal-runaway fires, inadequate local emergency response, factual allegations of lease and tax-abatement steps, and concrete threats of harm—sufficient to state a cognizable negligence-based nuisance claim and to seek prospective injunctive relief. The case is remanded for further proceedings.

The Texas Third Court of Appeals granted mandamus relief to Meredith Johnson (Mother) after the trial court denied her motion to compel the production of the father’s federal income tax returns for the past two years in a child-support case. The appeals court held that Family Code § 154.063 requires parties in child-support proceedings to produce two years of tax returns and other financial information, the returns are relevant to determining net resources and above-guideline support, and the trial court’s denial was a clear abuse of discretion. The court ordered the trial court to vacate its order denying the motion and to compel production of the tax returns.

The Texas Third Court of Appeals denied a petition asking the court to issue a writ of mandamus to control proceedings in a Travis County case. The court also lifted a previously entered stay of the underlying trial-court proceedings. The court issued a short memorandum opinion denying relief under the appellate rules and returning the case to the trial-court process, without further comment or substantive analysis in this brief disposition.

The Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio denied DNOW L.P.'s petition for a writ of mandamus and denied as moot its emergency stay motion. DNOW filed the petition, record, and emergency motion on April 6, 2026, but the court found the filings did not comply with Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure 52.3(k) and 52.7 and determined DNOW had not shown entitlement to mandamus relief under rule 52.8(a). The underlying state-court matters concern Mattea Mansell v. DNOW, L.P., pending in Zavala County district court.

The Court of Appeals (Eighth District, Texas) reviewed sanctions entered against Genevieve Glasgow in a post-divorce civil case brought against her former husband. The court held the trial court abused its discretion in awarding monetary attorney’s fees because the evidence did not meet the required showing of reasonable and necessary fees, reversed the portion awarding fees, affirmed the remaining sanctions (including dismissal with prejudice of remaining claims), and remanded solely for redetermination of attorney’s fees. The court found the declarations and spreadsheets submitted did not detail particular services, who performed them, when, or the time reasonably required.

The court of appeals reviewed Billy Jack Barrera’s conviction for felony cruelty to animals after his lawyer filed an Anders brief asking to withdraw because the appeal was frivolous. The record shows Barrera was convicted by a jury based on eyewitness testimony and photographic and veterinary evidence of injuries inflicted with a machete. After conducting an independent review of the record, the court concluded there were no arguable grounds for appeal, granted counsel’s motion to withdraw, and affirmed the trial court’s four-year sentence and costs.

The Court of Appeals for the Seventh District of Texas affirmed John Paul Ortega’s conviction and life-without-parole sentence for capital murder in the deaths of Iliana Garza and her unborn child. Ortega challenged the sufficiency of the evidence as to the unborn child’s death and argued the jury charge was erroneous for including self-defense in the abstract but not in the application paragraph. The court found the evidence sufficient because Ortega knew Garza was pregnant and a jury could infer he knew killing her was reasonably certain to kill the fetus. The court also found the charge error non-egregious given the evidence and arguments, so the conviction stands.

The Texas Department of Insurance filed an original proceeding in the Seventh Court of Appeals to challenge the denial of its motion to quash a subpoena in an underlying Lubbock County case. While the petition was pending, the Department and the plaintiff (Real Party in Interest, Traci Johnson) resolved their discovery dispute by a Rule 11 agreement, and the Department filed a notice that it intended to withdraw its petition. Because the parties settled and the relator withdrew its challenge, the court dismissed the Department's original proceeding without deciding the subpoena issue on the merits.

The Eleventh Court of Appeals dismissed a pro se appeal filed on behalf of corporate entities because a nonlawyer cannot represent entities in court. After notifying the parties that an attorney must represent the corporations, counsel who filed an amended notice of appeal withdrew and no new attorney entered an appearance or filed a brief. The court concluded the entities failed to comply with directives to obtain counsel and dismissed the appeal for want of prosecution and failure to follow court orders.

The Eleventh Court of Appeals dismissed Scott Crow’s appeal from his 2015 guilty plea and twenty-year sentence for third-degree felony driving while intoxicated. Crow filed a second pro se notice of appeal nearly ten years after sentencing, which the court found untimely under the appellate rules. The court also relied on the trial-court certification showing this was a plea-bargain case in which Crow waived any right of appeal. Because the notice was untimely and the certification precludes an appeal, the appellate court concluded it lacked jurisdiction and dismissed the appeal.

The Eleventh Court of Appeals dismissed this appeal on April 9, 2026. Rush Truck Centers of Texas, L.P. initially appealed a trial-court judgment but later obtained full relief when the trial court granted its post-judgment omnibus motion and entered a take-nothing judgment; Rush Truck moved to dismiss its portion of the appeal, which the court granted. The court also dismissed Ronald Joe Andrus, Jr.’s portion of the appeal for want of prosecution and failure to follow court directives after his counsel did not respond to requests, failed to pay filing fees, and failed to request or pay for the clerk’s record.

The Eleventh Court of Appeals dismissed an interlocutory appeal by Robert Berleth and his firm challenging the trial court’s denial of their plea to the jurisdiction and motion to dismiss under Texas Rule 91a. The court held it lacked jurisdiction because Berleth, a court‑appointed turnover receiver, is not a "governmental unit" under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §§ 51.014(a)(8) and 101.001(3), so he cannot bring an interlocutory appeal. The court relied on statutory text and precedent distinguishing uniquely governmental organs from privately appointed receivers whose authority is limited to satisfying a specific judgment.

The Eleventh Court of Appeals affirmed a Midland County trial court’s final divorce decree awarding spousal maintenance to Aletha Marie Dominguez. Oscar Dominguez argued (1) the maintenance award was unsupported and (2) the decree improperly limited his ability to seek future modification. The appeals court found the evidence, including testimony, financial statements, and the trial court’s findings, supported the determination of Aletha Marie’s minimum reasonable needs ($5,200/month) and that she lacked sufficient property at dissolution. The court also held any perceived restriction on seeking modification was moot or a permissible discretionary periodic-review provision.

The Eleventh Court of Appeals reviewed Jason Padilla’s bench-trial convictions for three counts of sexual assault of a child, one count of indecency with a child, and one count of possession of a controlled substance. The court held that testimony about prior minor acts of violence in the household was admissible to explain the victim’s delayed reporting and did not unduly prejudice Padilla. However, the court found the evidence insufficient to prove the seized residue was cocaine (no lab analysis or expert testimony), reversed the possession conviction, rendered an acquittal on that count, and modified one judgment to correct the statutory citation.

The Eleventh Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court order admitting Kara Watson’s will to probate as a muniment of title. The will was offered about nine years after Kara’s 2014 death; an interested party argued the proponent was in default for failing to probate within the four-year statutory period. After a bench trial the court found the proponent, Kara’s daughter Mary Gale, exercised reasonable diligence and had valid excuses (including caregiving duties, serious health problems, and lack of awareness of the need to probate). The appellate court held the evidence was legally sufficient to support that finding and affirmed.

The Eleventh Court of Appeals affirmed Fred Gonzales’s conviction for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and the resulting 25-year sentence. Gonzales argued his trial lawyer was ineffective for not showing him a dash-cam video before he rejected a misdemeanor plea offer and that the trial court erred by refusing a hearing on his motion for new trial. The court found the record did not affirmatively show deficient performance, and Gonzales failed to prove prejudice under the standard for plea-negotiation claims. The court also held the trial judge did not abuse discretion in denying a hearing on the motion for new trial.

The Court dismissed Bobbie Hall Wooldridge’s appeal of a guilty plea conviction for possession of methamphetamine because the trial court certified this was a plea-bargain case in which Wooldridge had no right to appeal. Wooldridge pleaded guilty pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement and received the agreed three-year sentence. The appellate court found no statutory or procedural basis to continue the appeal, noting the certification was signed by the defendant, defense counsel, and the judge, and that the record supported the certification.