Court Opinion

ID: 9647042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:22:03.764996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:36.073216
License: Public Domain

MIRABAL, Justice,
dissenting.
First, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the verification attached to relator’s petition for writ of mandamus is defective. On the page containing the verification appears both relator’s signature and the notary public’s signature. The fact that the relator signed above the verification statement, instead of below it, is not a fatal defect, in my opinion.
I respectfully dissent.
As to the evidence presented at the May 21, 1990 hearing on relator’s pauper’s affidavit, Judge J. Bradley Smith presiding, I find it is clear and uncontested that relator was unable to pay the costs, or a part thereof, or give security therefor, assuming “he really wanted to and made a good faith effort to do so.” Pinchback v. Hockless, 139 Tex. 536, 537, 164 S.W.2d 19, 20 (1942).
The following are excerpts from relator’s uncontroverted testimony:
[By relator]: Here’s a letter from the doctor about my finger. It’s on the letterhead of the Texas Institute of Plastic Surgery from Dr. Franklin A. Rose. Well, it says: To whom it may concern Re: Charles Cronen, Patient No. 1520096. Mr. Cronen has been released from work since January 24, 1990, when he presented to our office with a near-*73complete amputation of the mid-distal phalanx of the right middle finger.
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Okay. With open compound fracture and injury to the nail and germinal nail matrix as well as disruption of tendon insertion of the extensor mechanism dorsally.
If I can be of any help to you, please do not hesitate to contact me. Very truly yours, Franklin A. Rose, M.D.
What that means is the forklift like cut my finger off. It broke the bone and it was hanging there just by a little piece of meat and was flapping around, you know. And it’s still not completely well yet. Anyway, that’s kept me from working since January. But he says he might — he’s planning on sending me back for light duty or something as of this week. But I haven’t been over there because I had to—
THE COURT: Go to court.
[Relator]: —go to court this morning, yes, sir.
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[By Relator]: Besides not having any money, that’s what I tried to cover through all that, I’ve been on welfare and I didn’t have any money and I ain’t got any property to pay with. I don’t have any real property outside of my homestead, which is just this one lot where I live on and my little shack. I’m living in poverty. I don’t have no utilities. I don’t have any conveniences, you know, no electric, no water, no sewer, no regular — you know, it’s just complete poverty over there.
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And beyond that, due to my finger being broke, I haven’t had any work all year so I didn’t have any money to live on. Up until the time I was getting my compensation, I was in pretty bad shape, you know. And that money has to go for a lot of bills and stuff.
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[By Defense Counsel]: Q. All right. How much was the workmen’s compensation that you got every month?
[By Relator]: A. $238 a week.
Q. And what other money have you been getting?
A. None.
Q. What have you been living on before you got the workmen’s compensation.
A. I told you I was behind on my bills. I scraped along on what I made, which is almost nothing.
Q. No, no, just — you were getting food stamps?
A. Yes. ma’am.
Q. And you were on welfare?
A. Yes. ma’am.
Q. Had you tried to get a job?
A. Yes. ma’am.
Q. How did you get the job at the As-trodomain?
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Q. Have you tried getting a job anywhere else?
A. Yes, ma’am.
Q. Where?
A. I tried getting all kinds of easy jobs, like sales clerk, telephone work, paper ^office trainee, filing clerk, all kind of little easy jobs that I could do with one hand, you know.
Q. Have you tried working at any of the restaurants or fast food places—
A. No, ma'am.
Q. —some of those people that are always asking for help?
A. I didn’t apply at any restaurants, no, ma’am.
Q. Because they’re usually asking for help.
A. I can’t stand kitchen work.
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Q. Just let me ask you a question. Do you have any property you could get a loan on?
A. No, ma’am. I’ve tried to get loans in the past. I’ve even offered to put up my shack and my lot and they wouldn’t take it for collateral. I can’t get home improvement loans, home construction loans, court loans, bond loans, or any kind of loans. And I’ve tried and tried and tried.
*74Q. May I ask, who have you tried to borrow from?
A. Almost every major bank in Houston. All these banks downtown, Texas Commerce Bank. First City Bank, Republic Bank, MBank, Bank of the Southwest. Every major bank you can find. All the savings and loans in my neighborhood. All the finance companies I could find between my house and Almeda Mall, which is three or four miles, within that area around there, every financial institution that I could find.
Q. Did you file an income tax last year?.
A. Yes, ma’am. Let me see what it was here. Last year, I made $4,182, plus some unemployment of $1,546, for a total income last year of $5,728, which left me on welfare.
Q. Do you know what the costs of appeal would be in this case?
A. No, ma’am, but I was trying to say — in the past, Mr. Hardy has asked me for a thousand dollars standard bond. They charge me fifty cents or a dollar a page for every page they do for this, that and the other. They charge me separately for the statement of facts on top of the record and everything else. And I just didn’t have the money, because I didn’t have the money to get by and live on. And now I’ve got all these other problems come up that I don’t have the money to cover them.
Relator further testified he no longer drives his car because he does not have the money to repair it or to buy gas, nor can he pay the inspection or license plate fees. He has no refrigerator, since his shack has no electricity or running water. He did not start receiving workers’ compensation benefits until May 1, 1990, three weeks before the hearing.
After hearing the evidence and closing arguments, Judge Smith stated the following:
THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Cronen, I remain unconvinced that you are involuntarily unemployed.
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Nobody had held a gun to your head to make you come up here and file all these lawsuits against various governmental entities in this county. You’ve done that by your own choice. So your inability to work because you have to go to court doesn’t hold any water with me, because you’re here by your own choice.
And secondly, you have indicated also here that you are somewhat selective about what kind of work you do. You said you don’t like restaurant work. Well, I’m not going to force the taxpayers of Harris County to pay for your appeal when you come up here and say that you don’t like to do restaurant work. If you want to appeal this case, you go get you a job somewhere, in a restaurant if necessary, and pay the costs like every other litigant in this county.
The contest is sustained. That’s all.
There is no doubt from the evidence that relator is impoverished. Whether his poverty resulted from his own lack of effort cannot be considered in determining whether he is able to pay the costs of appeal. Ranier v. Brown, 623 S.W.2d 682, 686 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1981, orig. proceeding). A person should not be denied the right to an appeal even though his inability to pay the costs results from his past misconduct or improvidence. Id.
In Ranier, this court granted mandamus as to the wife relator, finding the trial court abused its discretion in sustaining the contest to her affidavit of inability to pay costs. However, as to the husband relator, we denied mandamus because he had secured a job two weeks before the hearing, and he had 1-½ months left to save enough money to pay the $500 cash deposit for his appeal; the appeal bond was not due until I-V2 months after the hearing.
In the present case, relator wishes to appeal from a judgment signed February 1, 1990. The deadline for filing his appeal bond, or affidavit in lieu thereof, was May 2, 1990. The hearing on the contest to relator's affidavit of inability to pay was conducted on May 21, 1990. Unlike the husband relator in Ranier, relator here had no additional time after the hearing to save *75money for the posting of an appeal bond; therefore, the trial court here was restricted to a consideration of relator’s then, at the moment of the hearing, ability to pay a cash deposit of $1000.00, and other costs of appeal.1
Rule 145 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure defines a “party who is unable to afford costs” as a “person who is presently receiving a government entitlement based on indigency or any other person who has no ability to pay costs.” Up until three weeks before the hearing in this case, relator had been on welfare and had been receiving food stamps; before May 1, 1991, he was a “party who is unable to afford costs” as a matter of law. Relator’s welfare and food stamp benefits ceased when he began receiving workers’ compensation benefits for his injured hand; the worker’s compensation benefits constituted his sole income at the time of the hearing.
In my opinion, as of the date of the hearing, relator was not yet in a position of enjoying what most people consider the bare necessities of life. I cannot condone a conclusion that the $238.00 per week relator began receiving May 1, 1991, three weeks before the hearing, should be applied to a $1000.00 appeal bond due immediately.
In my opinion, the trial court abused its discretion in sustaining the contest to relator’s affidavit of inability to pay costs of appeal. I would grant leave to file the petition for writ of mandamus.

. It is also noted that the majority opinion, in distinguishing Ranter, does not seem to take into account the purchasing power of the dollar in 1981, as compared to the purchasing power of the dollar in 1991, i.e., the effect of inflation,