Court Opinion

ID: 9774917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:38:10.521338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:30.266932
License: Public Domain

DUGGAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In the interest of justice, I would reverse and remand with orders to reinstate this case.
It was unchallenged that appellant’s case was dismissed through no fault of his own. In fact, the dismissal was the result of a series of errors on the part of the trial court. Specifically, the trial court (1) granted a motion by appellant’s first attorney to withdraw from the case, (2) failed to record the withdrawal, (3) failed to record the properly filed designation of appellant’s new counsel, (4) sent notice of. intention to dismiss for want of prosecution to the wrong attorney, and then (5) lost the dismissal notices, which had been returned to the court as “undeliverable.” These notices established appellant’s claim under Tex.R.Civ.P. 165a(3) that his failure to appear at the hearing on the dismissal was not the result of his conscious indifference, but was due to the trial court’s mistake. Appellant’s counsel made diligent, even frantic, efforts to obtain the proof he considered necessary to support reinstatement, but the trial court’s clerk did not locate these notices until September 7,1990, after the time for filing a motion to reinstate had passed.
I believe the majority is correct in its conclusion that the combined effect of Tex. R.Civ.P. 165a and Tex.R.Civ.P. 306a is to grant a litigant up to 120 days to act in a case where notice of a dismissal is not timely received.1 However, the rule has given rise to considerable confusion and *486should be clarified. See Clements v. Barnes, 834 S.W.2d 45, 46 n. 2 (Tex.1992).
Furthermore, in General Electric Co. v. Falcon Ridge Apartments, Joint Venture, 811 S.W.2d 942 (Tex.1991), the supreme court stated that a party suffering an adverse judgment rendered without notice may not, consistent with concepts of due process, be hampered with undue burdens in attacking the judgment. Id. at 9⅛⅛, citing Peralta v. Heights Medical Center, Inc., 485 U.S. 80, 86, 108 S.Ct. 896, 899, 99 L.Ed.2d 75 (1988). Although those cases dealt with unfair burdens imposed by the rules of procedure, I see no distinction between a situation where the rules of court unfairly handicap a litigant and a situation where some action by the court creates an unfair handicap.
To my way of thinking, the trial court’s repeated errors in this case constituted an undue burden that fatally hampered appellant’s ability to challenge the dismissal of his case within the 120-day period. Appellant was prevented from appearing at the hearing on the court’s intention to dismiss for want of prosecution by the court’s failure to notify him. Then, when the case was dismissed, he was deprived of timely notice of the dismissal, again because of the court’s error. Finally, his challenge of that dismissal was delayed beyond the period allowed by the rules because of the clerk’s failure to locate information that should have been readily available in the court’s file.
In Hardtke v. Katz, this Court held that the law should encourage, not frustrate, reasonable steps to correct administrative errors such as occurred in this case. Hardtke v. Katz, 813 S.W.2d 548, 550 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1991, no writ). I would hold that under the circumstances of this case, the undue burden imposed by the trial court’s errors unfairly hampered appellant’s attempts to challenge the dismissal. The dismissal, therefore, should be set aside and the case should be reinstated.

. Appellant acknowledges that interpretation as well, but relies on Hale v. Mothershed, 715 S.W.2d 134 (Tex.App.—Texarkana 1986, no writ), for the contrary proposition, that the time for him to file a motion to reinstate expired after only 90 days. The Hale court considered an appellant's failure to comply with the requirement of rule 306a(5). Rule 306a(5) requires that in order to establish the application of rule 306a(4) the party adversely affected must prove on sworn motion the date on which he or his attorney first received the notice or acquired actual knowledge of the judgment and that this date was more than 20 days after the judgment was signed. The Hale court found this failure to be a jurisdictional defect. The court was not addressing the question before us when it wrote "If the [aggrieved] party receives notice [of the dismissal] after twenty days but within ninety days, the trial court may reinstate the case within thirty days after notice was received." 715 S.W.2d at 134. Nothing in the Hale case suggests that the court considered a situation like the one before us where the aggrieved party learns of the dismissal during the 30 day period implicitly provided by rule 306a(l) following the expiration of the 90 day period provided by rule 306a(4). Further, the Hale case has been criticized for its observations concerning rules 165a and 306a. See Pope v. Moore, 729 S.W.2d 125, 128 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1987, writ refd n.r.e.).