Trial court’s granting of City’s plea to the jurisdiction considered void because it should have issued its order in the separate case created by the plaintiff’s bill of review
Clayton Richter, Dorothy Richter, and Jonathan Richter v. City of Waelder, Texas,13-20-00494-CV and 13-20-00495-CV, (Tex. App – Corpus Christi – Edinburg, August 12, 2021)
This is a flooding case, but the opinion focused entirely on procedural problems where the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal, noting the court lack jurisdiction over the appeals because the ultimate merits of this case were adjudicated in the wrong trial court proceeding.
The Richters sued the City of Waelder (the City) for various causes of action after leaks in the City’s waterpipe caused multiple flooding incidents on the Richters’ property. The trial court granted the City’s plea to the jurisdiction, but the Richters later filed a bill of review. The trial court granted the bill of review, but then again granted the City’s plea under the original cause number. The Richters appealed the granting of the plea and the City cross-appealed the granting of the bill of review.
A bill of review is an equitable proceeding to set aside a judgment that is not void on the face of the record but is no longer appealable or subject to a motion for new trial. When a trial court grants a bill of review and sets aside a judgment in a prior case, the subsequent trial on the merits must occur in the bill of review proceeding, not in the underlying case in which the judgment is vacated. By proceeding as it did, the trial court created two jurisdictional problems: (1) the bill of review judgment does not fully adjudicate the Richters’ suit; and (2) the trial court signed the judgment in the original cause after its plenary power expired. The trial court’s bill of review judgment fails to address the merits of the Richters’ claim. Therefore, it is not a final, appealable order. The granting of the plea in the original proceeding is void because the court had lost plenary power under that cause number. Since the court of appeals only has appellate jurisdiction over either final judgments which are timely appealed (not present here) or authorized interlocutory orders (also not present because of a lack of plenary power), the court of appeals has no jurisdiction over either appeal. Essentially, the court’s opinion results in the trial court having to consider the plea to the jurisdiction under the cause number for the bill of review and not the original case.
Panel consists of Justices Longoria, Hinojosa, and Tijerina. Memorandum opinion by Justice Hinojosa can be found here. Docket pages with attorney information found here.
