Opinion ID: 2834206
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Can the New Trial Orders be Vacated?

Text: Nowhere but Texas can one find a single appellate opinion discussing when a court can “ungrant” a motion. Texas has more than 20, almost all dealing with our unique rule that an order granting a new trial cannot be “ungranted” more than 75 days after it is signed. [8] This ungrammatical rule stems from Fulton v. Finch , a 1961 opinion in which we held that an order granting a new trial could not be set aside after the deadline for ruling on new trial motions. [9] That was because rule 329b at the time provided that all motions for new trial “must be determined” within 45 days: All motions and amended motions for new trial must be determined within not exceeding forty-five (45) days after the original or amended motion is filed, unless by written agreement of the parties in the case, the decision of the motion is postponed to a later date. [10] Because reinstating the original judgment was “tantamount to overruling [the] motion for new trial,” we held the 45-day deadline imposed an absolute limit on when an order of new trial could be “ un determined” and the original judgment reinstated. [11] Rule 329b was amended effective January 1, 1981 to eliminate this “must be determined” provision. [12] Now, the rule terminates the trial court’s plenary power 30 days after all timely motions for new trial are overruled , [13] but there is no provision limiting its plenary power if such motions are granted . Under the current rules, if no judgment is signed, no plenary-power clock is ticking. But some 33 years after Fulton this Court issued Porter v. Vick , a five-paragraph per curiam opinion that read Fulton to render void any attempt to vacate a new-trial order after plenary power would have expired had the original judgment not been set aside. [14] But Fulton did not even mention plenary power; it turned on a rule, since repealed, requiring new trial orders to be decided within 45 days. The Porter opinion neither recognizes nor addresses the 1981 changes to rule 329b. Instead, Porter imposed a deadline based on a purely hypothetical event: the expiration of plenary power assuming that a vacated judgment had instead become final. Plenary power of course expires only after final judgments, not vacated judgments. So Porter ’s deadline is highly unusual; it is hard to think of any other case in which a deadline runs from a vacated order. Moreover, rather than enforcing the rules of plenary power, the deadline in Porter v. Vick is inconsistent with them. [15] When a new trial is granted, the case stands on the trial court’s docket “the same as though no trial had been had.” [16] Accordingly, the trial court should then have the power to set aside a new trial order “any time before a final judgment is entered.” [17] It is possible (though not mentioned in the opinion) that Porter v. Vick sought to prevent a situation where reinstatement of a previous judgment would prevent a party from having time to file an appeal. As parties have 90 days to appeal when a motion for new trial is filed, [18] retroactively reinstating an original judgment more than 90 days after it was signed arguably might prevent any appeal at all. [19] But we recently clarified that “a trial judge who modifies a judgment and then withdraws the modification has modified the judgment twice rather than never.” [20] Rule 329b(h) provides that if a judgment is modified “ in any respect ” the appellate timetables are restarted. [21] Surely a judgment that is set aside by a new trial order has been modified in some respect, even if it is later reinstated. [22] Thus, if a new trial is granted and later withdrawn, the appellate deadlines run from the later order granting reinstatement rather than the earlier order. It is true that if trial judges constantly reconsider prior orders, time and money can be wasted waiting for closure. But a rule preventing trial judges from ever reconsidering a prior order would be wasteful too. New trial orders are rare, and the long list of cases in footnote 8 shows that trial judges often think better of them. Perhaps a rule should be adopted placing a deadline on reinstating a judgment, even though no rule currently sets a deadline on signing a judgment in the first place. But a deadline that appears only in case law sets a trap for judges and litigants like the one they fell into here. “A trial court’s plenary jurisdiction gives it not only the authority but the responsibility to review any pre-trial order upon proper motion.” [23] This principle is violated by the rule of Porter v. Vick , as succinctly noted by one Texas justice: (1) [A]fter a motion for new trial has been granted, how can a trial court have ongoing plenary power to re-try the case, etc., but lack plenary power to vacate the decision to grant the motion for new trial?; (2) once a trial court determines that a motion for new trial has been improvidently granted and that a proper adjudication was, in fact, reached, why must the time and other resources of the parties and judicial system nevertheless be wasted to relitigate it?; and (3) why have such anomalies been allowed to persist? [24] Federal courts and commentators agree: “There is no sound reason why the court may not reconsider its ruling [granting] a new trial” at any time. [25] Accordingly , we overrule Porter v. Vick , and abate this case for Judge Jordan to reconsider whether to enter judgment on the jury verdict or to grant a new trial. ________________________ Scott Brister