Opinion ID: 1353943
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Heading: The Ten-Day Trial on Appeal

Text: The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code gives an applicant whose alcohol permit is suspended or denied the right to appeal that administrative decision to a district court. Tex. Alco. Bev.Code § 11.67. The relevant portion of the statute reads as follows: The appeal shall be under the substantial evidence rule and against the commission alone as defendant. The rules applicable to ordinary civil suits apply, with the following exceptions, which shall be construed literally: (1) the appeal shall be perfected and filed within 30 days after the date the order, decision, or ruling of the commission or administrator becomes final and appealable; (2) the case shall be tried before a judge within 10 days from the date it is filed; (3) neither party is entitled to a jury; and (4) the order, decision, or ruling of the commission or administrator may be suspended or modified by the court pending a trial on the merits, but the final judgment of the district court may not be modified or suspended pending appeal. Tex. Alco. Bev.Code § 11.67(b). Generally, on appeal from an administrative denial of a liquor license, the district court conducts an abbreviated hearing [1] and renders a decision within ten days after the appeal is filed. See id. § 11.67(a), (b). At the district court's discretion, the decision to withhold the license may be suspended pending the abbreviated hearing. Id. § 11.67(b)(4). However, a final judgment, once rendered, takes immediate effect and cannot be suspended pending an appeal to the court of appeals. Id. The statute makes no provision for a disposition in the event the district court does not render judgment within ten days. We address that issue today. We have held that section 11.67(b)(2) requires all proceedings in the district court to be completed within ten days of the date the appeal is filed. Cook v. Walker, 529 S.W.2d 762, 762 (Tex.1975); Cook v. Spears, 524 S.W.2d 290, 292 (Tex.1975). In Spears, we discussed the legislative history of article 666-15e, section 7a of the Texas Liquor Control Act, which is the predecessor to Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code section 11.67(b). 524 S.W.2d at 291. We observed that the earliest version of the Act required only that an appeal be tried within ten days or at the earliest possible time thereafter in the event the Judge is not able to try such cause within such ten (10) day period. Id. at 291 n. 2 (emphasis omitted) (citing Texas Liquor Control Act, 44th Leg., 2d C.S., ch. 467, art. I, § 14, 1935 Tex. Gen. Laws 1795, 1803). The Legislature subsequently amended that provision by striking the language permitting a judge to extend the trial beyond the ten-day period. See Act of May 22, 1937, 45th Leg., R.S., ch. 448, art. I, § 15, 1937 Tex. Gen. Laws 1053, 1066. In 1961, the Legislature added article 666-15e to the Liquor Control Act and declared that the terms of the statute, including the ten-day-trial rule, shall be considered literally. Act of May 25, 1961, 57th Leg., R.S., ch. 262, § 7a, 1961 Tex. Gen. Laws 559, 561. Based on the Legislature's systematic efforts to constrict the timetable within which judgment must be rendered, we concluded in Spears that the appeal period in the district court could not exceed the statutory ten-day limit. 524 S.W.2d at 291-92. Thus, we held that the permittee in Spears, who sought a continuance and further discovery well beyond the ten-day period for court action, lost his right to a district court appeal when the period elapsed without a district court judgment. Id. We reached a similar conclusion in Cook v. Walker . There, although the license applicant filed an appeal to the district court on March 26, 1975, the judge did not set the matter for trial until May 2, 1975. Walker, 529 S.W.2d at 762. Because more than ten days expired between the filing date and the trial date, we concluded that the applicant's right to a district court appeal expired at the end of the tenth day. Id. Garza contends that Spears and Walker are distinguishable because, in this case, the district court actually heard the matter eight days after Garza filed his appeal. This distinction is significant if, as Garza asserts, the trial in section 11.67(b)(2) refers only to a hearing on the merits and does not necessitate rendition of judgment. In support of his argument, Garza cites Fox v. Medina, 848 S.W.2d 866 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 1993, no writ). In Fox, the district court conducted its hearing and rendered an oral judgment in open court within ten days of the date the appeal was filed, but did not sign the judgment until after the expiration of the statutory period. Id. at 870. Rather than require the appellant to obtain a written judgment within ten days, the court of appeals reasoned that the better course is to have trial judges hear or `try' the case within 10 days and render judgment in that period, but not to strip appellants of their appeal and render for appellees automatically if the judge does not sign the written judgment within 10 days. Id. at 871 n. 3. We agree with Fox that trial, as used in section 11.67, refers to a hearing on the merits and rendition of judgment. And regardless of how rendition occurs, section 11.67 does not prevent a district court from performing the ministerial act of memorializing a timely rendition in a signed judgment after the ten-day period has passed. However, Garza asks this Court to hold that the district court may defer rendering judgment until some point in time after the ten-day period has expired. We decline to do so. Garza's suggested interpretation of the term trial under section 11.67(b) would leave the district court free of the statute's time limitations and able to delay rendition indefinitely. We cannot reconcile this result with the Legislature's express decision to confine the trial of a licensing appeal to a rigid ten-day time limit. See Spears, 524 S.W.2d at 291. Considering the statute as a whole, it is evident that section 11.67(b) was designed to secure a speedy disposition of administrative appeals. If we were to adopt Garza's positionthat a district court may delay rendition indefinitelya business could continue operating more than ten days after the appeal is filed even when (as here) a county court has concluded that the business imperils the general welfare, health, peace, morals, and safety of the people. See Tex. Alco. Bev.Code § 61.42(a)(3). The statute itself forecloses Garza's argument. Section 11.67(b)(4) provides that the order, decision, or ruling of the commission or administrator may be suspended or modified by the court pending a trial on the merits, but the final judgment of the district court may not be modified or suspended pending appeal. The Legislature made certain that a business found to endanger public safety would cease operations during the pendency of further appeals. Garza's interpretation would contravene the statute by removing this safeguard. We conclude section 11.67(b) requires that judgment be rendered no later than ten days after the licensee perfects its appeal to the district court. Because the statute creates an absolute deadline for rendition of judgment, district courts have no power to render judgment or entertain post-judgment motions after expiration of the ten-day period. See Spears, 524 S.W.2d at 292; McBeth v. Riverside Inn Corp., 593 S.W.2d 734, 736 (Tex.Civ.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1979, writ ref'd n.r.e.). We disapprove of cases holding that a district court has plenary power to grant a new trial or vacate, modify, or reform a judgment after expiration of the ten-day-trial period. See Texas Alco. Beverage Comm'n v. Top of the Strip, Inc., 993 S.W.2d 242 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 1999, pet. denied); El-Kareh v. Texas Alco. Beverage Comm'n, 874 S.W.2d 192 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1994, no writ). Our analysis is consistent with our holdings in other contexts. See Lawyers Lloyds of Texas v. Webb, 137 Tex. 107, 152 S.W.2d 1096, 1097 (1941) (stating that trial ordinarily includes every step in the determination of the issues between parties including hearings on post judgment motions for new trial, but defining actual trial in the writ of error statute as the hearing in open court, leading up to the rendition of judgment); see also McBeth, 593 S.W.2d at 736 (applying the Lawyers Lloyds definition of trial to a section 11.67(b) appeal). Accordingly, a district court's judgment in a section 11.67 appeal must be rendered within ten days of the date the appeal is filed. Although the 268th District Court signed a judgment remanding the case to the county court on January 28, 1998, that attempted rendition occurred outside the strict ten-day period conferred by the statute; therefore, the January 28, 1998 judgment and all subsequent proceedings in the district court are void.