In The 

Court of Appeals 

Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo

No. 07-15-00426-CV 

IN THE MATTER OF THE MARRIAGE OF JEFF DAVIS RAMPLEY 

AND LAURA ANN RAMPLEY 

 

On Appeal from the 110th District Court 

Briscoe County, Texas 

Trial Court No. 3462, Honorable William P. Smith, Presiding 

 

November 16, 2016 

 

MEMORANDUM OPINION 

 

Before QUINN, C.J., and CAMPBELL and HANCOCK, JJ. 

J.D.R. (father), acting pro se, appealed from a final divorce decree. His sole 

issue concerns the absence from the decree of a provision restricting his ex-wife (L.A.R. 

or mother) from removing the children of the marriage further than 100 miles from 

Silverton, Texas. Both parents were designated joint managing conservators, while 

mother was granted authority to designate the children’s primary residence without 

geographic limitation. Mother eventually obtained a new job and moved from Silverton 

to the Fort Worth area. The children went with her. Father asks us to modify the 

divorce decree by restricting their residence to within 100 miles of Silverton. We affirm 

for the following reasons. 
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First, father tendered his initial appellant’s brief to this court on June 20, 2016. 

On June 22, 2016 we notified him via letter that the document “[did] not comply with the 

briefing requirements of Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 38.1 as it [did] not contain 

references to the appellate record or citations to legal authorities. See TEX. R. APP. P.

38.1(g), (i).” So too was he informed that his “[f]ailure to file a corrected brief . . . will 

result in submission of Appellant’s noncompliant brief . . . and may result in waiver of 

Appellant’s arguments.” 

Within several weeks, father tendered another appellant’s brief. It consisted of a 

general narrative of his complaints and again lacked references to any applicable legal 

authority. Nor did it contain citations to the appellate record, save for one general 

allusion to “. . . the Reporter Records Volume 1 through 3 cause no. 3462 . . . .” 

Volumes 1 through 3 constitute the entire Reporter’s Record. 

Needless to say, pro se litigants are obligated to comply with the Texas Rules of 

Appellate Procedure. Mansfield State Bank v. Cohn, 573 S.W.2d 181, 184-85 (Tex. 

1978); Shelley v. Colorado Bd. Gov., No. 07-15-00410-CV, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 7688,

at *2 n.2 (Tex. App.—Amarillo July 19, 2016, no pet.) (mem. op.). If this were not so 

then they would be afforded unfair advantage. Mansfield State Bank v. Cohn, 573 

S.W.2d at 184-85. Furthermore, one of those rules requires an appellant to include 

within his brief appropriate citations to the record and legal authority. TEX. R. APP. P.

38.1(i). Failing to comply with that directive results in the waiver of the issue urged. 

Shelley v. Colorado Bd. Gov., 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 7688, at *1-2. 

Because father’s brief lacks reference to legal authority it fails to comply with 

Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 38.1(i). A general citation to the entire reporter’s
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record fails to do so as well. The latter is nothing more than imposing upon us the task 

of searching for evidence to support the position urged; the duty to do that falls upon the 

appellant, as opposed to the reviewing court. See Daniel v. Webb, 110 S.W.3d 708,

710 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2003, no pet.) (recognizing, among other things, that a 

reviewing court has no duty to search the appellate record for evidence supporting 

issues and that the duty to find and cite the appellate court to pertinent evidence falls 

upon the appellant). Consequently, father did not correct the defects to which we 

previously alluded and, therefore, waived the argument he now posits.

Second, even if we were to ignore the requirements of Rule 38.1(i), we would 

have to overrule his complaint. This is so because of the pertinent standard of review,

i.e. abused discretion, In the Interest of R.A.W., No. 07-13-00316-CV, 2015 Tex. App. 

LEXIS 3039, at *3 (Tex. App.—Amarillo March 27, 2015, no pet.) (mem. op.) (stating 

that decisions regarding possession and custody are reviewed under the standard of 

abused discretion), and the limitations it imposes upon us. Under that standard, we are 

not free to simply substitute our decision for that of the trial court. See id. at *3-4

(stating that “[a]s long as some evidence of a substantive and probative character exists 

to support the trial court’s judgment, an appellate court will not substitute its judgment 

for that of the trial court.”). Rather, it must be affirmed so long as it is not arbitrary and 

otherwise comports with controlling rules and principles. Id. at *3. That we may wish to 

interpret the record in a different manner to reach a different result matters not. If the 

trial court’s decision falls within the realm of a legitimate exercise of discretion, we must 

defer to it. And, the decision here falls within such a realm.
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Next, a trial court need not specify a geographic limitation in a possession or 

custody order. TEX. FAM. CODE ANN. § 153.134(b)(1) (West 2014) (stating that the court 

may “specify that the conservator may determine the child’s primary residence without 

regard to geographic location”). Whether to do that or not depends upon the best 

interests of the child. See id. § 153.002 (West 2014) (stating that “[t]he best interest of 

the child shall always be the primary consideration of the court in determining the issues 

of conservatorship and possession and access to the child.”). Furthermore, evidence 

that 1) the children have access to better schools due to the move to Fort Worth, 2)

mother is able to financially support the children in ways she could not if required to 

remain in Silverton, 3) mother has increased wages in Fort Worth, 4) the children enjoy 

improved access to mother due to the hours of her new job, 5) the children are able to 

maintain a viable relationship with father and paternal grandparents despite the travel 

involved, 6) the children enjoy greater access to their maternal grandmother, and 7) 

father has engaged in aggressive physical behavior against mother prevents us from

concluding that the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to restrict the children’s 

residence to Silverton or within 100 miles of same. 

No doubt the children will experience some loss arising from change and the 

increased distance from their father. No doubt there are beneficial experiences that 

children may gain from living in rural as opposed to urban areas. But we cannot simply 

reweigh the evidence and substitute our personal decision on what is best for the 

children for that of the trial court. Consequently, we overrule the sole issue before us 

and affirm the decree of divorce.

Per Curiam