Affirmed and Opinion Filed February 26, 2015 

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In The 

## Court of Appeals Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
No. 05-13-01722-CV IN THE INTEREST OF M.N.B. AND D.M.B. On Appeal from the 256th Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. DF-13-09630


### MEMORANDUM OPINION Before Justices Lang, Brown, and Whitehill Opinion by Justice Whitehill Appellant Dante Berry filed for a divorce from his wife, appellee Margaret Nicole Banks. No reporter’s record has been filed, but the fina l decree of divorce contains a recital that Berry did not appear for trial and that the case was tried to the bench. The trial court granted the parties a divorce and appointed Banks the sole managing conservator of the parties’ two minor children, M.N.B. and D.M.B. Although the court appointed Berry possessory conservator, the court also ordered that Berry would have no access to or possession of the children until Berry appeared in court and the court made furthe r orders regarding access and possession. Berry appeals pro se, asserting twenty issues on appeal . We affirm based on deficiencies in Berry’s amended appellate brief.–2– A PPLICABLE L AW We hold pro se litigants to the same standards as licensed attorneys, and we require them to comply with the rules of appellate procedure. In re I.A.S. , No. 05-13-00947-CV, 2014 WL 1483592, at *1 (Tex. App.—Dallas Apr. 15, 2014, no pet. ) (mem. op.). We have neither the duty nor the right to perform an indepe ndent review of the record and applicable law to determine if there was error. Id . at *2. The Texas Rules of Appellate Pr ocedure require approp riate citations to the record in the statement of facts and argument sect ions of an appellate brief. T EX
. R. A PP
. P. 38.1(g), (i); see also Bolling v. Farmers Branch Indep. Sch. Dist. , 315 S.W.3d 893, 896 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2010, no pet.) (“If record references are not made . . . the brief fails.”). The rules also require “a clear and concise argument for the contentions made, with appropriate citations to authorities.”
T EX
. R. A PP
. P. 38.1(i). Bare assertions of error without citations to the record or to authority present nothing for us to review. In re I.A.S. , 2014 WL 1483592, at *1. A PPLICATION OF THE L AW TO THE F ACTS After Berry filed his or iginal brief, we notif ied him of its numerous deficiencies under the rules of appellate procedure. He filed an am ended brief that suffers from many of the same defects as his original brief. For example, hi s statement of facts is based largely on matters outside the record and contains no record citations. The argumen t section of his brief is one paragraph long, contains no record citations or citations to legal authority, and merely refers us back to the statement of issues presented and the statement of the facts. Because the one-paragraph argument section of Berry’s brief is devoi d of substance, we have reviewed his five-page statement of the is sues to determine if he supported any of them with adequate briefing. Issues two, six, thirteen, fifteen, se venteen, eighteen, nineteen, and twenty contain no citations to legal authority at all. Issues one, three, four, seven, eight, nine,–3– ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen refer in passing to various constitutional provisions and statutes, but they contain no reas oned argumentation applying those pr ovisions to the facts of this case. Issue five contains a list of appellat e cases, but again Berry provides no argumentation applying them to the facts of this case. And there are no record citations in the issues presented or anywhere else in Berry’s brief. We conc lude that all of Berry’s issues presented are inadequately briefed and are therefore waived. See id . at *2; see also In re Estate of Miller , 243 S.W.3d 831, 840 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2008, no pet.) (i ssue waived because appellant did not analyze legal authority and made “no sugge sted application of it to the facts”). For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the trial court’s judgment. See Crouch v. Continental Cas. Co. , No. 05-06-00605-CV, 2007 WL 2028761, at *1 (Tex. App.—Dallas July 16, 2007, pet. denied) (mem. op.) (affirming judgme nt after concluding appellant waived all issues for inadequate briefing).

131722F.P05 /Bill Whitehill/ BILL WHITEHILL JUSTICE–4– 

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Court of Appeals Fifth District of Texas at Dallas JUDGMENT

IN THE INTEREST OF M.N.B. AND D.M.B. No. 05-13-01722-CV On Appeal from the 256th Judicial District Court, Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. DF-13-09630. Opinion delivered by Justice Whitehill. Justices Lang and Brown participating. In accordance with this Court’s opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is AFFIRMED

. It is ORDERED that appellee Margaret Nicole Banks recover her costs of this appeal from appellant Dante Berry.
Judgment entered February 26, 2015.