Court Opinion

ID: 9691094
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:08:31.985514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:10.028638
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
Dissenting Opinion by
Justice MOSELEY.
I refer to the majority opinion for a detailed statement of the facts. Based on those facts, however, I respectfully dissent.
“A motion to reinstate shall set forth the grounds therefor and be veñfied by the movant or his attorney. It shall be filed with the clerk within 30 days after the order of dismissal is signed.... ” Tex.R. Civ. P. 165a(3) (emphasis added). A proper motion to reinstate must be verified and filed with the clerk within thirty days of the signing of the order of dismissal. McConnell v. May, 800 S.W.2d 194, 194 (Tex.1990) (orig.proceeding) (per curiam). If it is not, the trial court’s jurisdiction to reinstate the case expires. Id.
It is undisputed that Yvette did not file a sworn motion to reinstate the divorce case within thirty days of the November 21,1990 order of dismissal. Thus, the trial court’s jurisdiction to reinstate her divorce case expired on December 21,1990, see id., and its January 1991 reinstatement order and its 1991 divorce decree are void. See id.; State ex rel. Latty v. Owens, 907 S.W.2d 484, 486 (Tex.1995) (per curiam) (“Judicial action taken after the court’s jurisdiction over a cause has expired is a nullity.”) (citing Times Herald Printing Co. v. Jones, 730 S.W.2d 648, 649 (Tex.1987) (per curiam); First Alief Bank v. *398White, 682 S.W.2d 251, 252 (Tex.1984) (per curiam); and Ex parte Olivares, 662 S.W.2d 594, 595 (Tex.1983)). For the same reason, the trial court has no jurisdiction over the Office of the Attorney General’s motion to confirm arrearages, which was filed in the same proceeding.
The majority opinion deviates from the above analysis by concluding that “the combination of the evidentiary hearing with the court master’s recommendation of approval, within the thirty days, was an adequate substitute for the more technical verification requirement of McConnell.” In re Dobbins, No. 05-07-01175-CV, 247 S.W.3d 394, at 397, 2008 WL 541901 (Tex.App.-Dallas Feb.29, 2008, orig. proceeding). This conclusion rests on the premise that the continued validity of McConnell was called into question by Guest v. Dixon, 195 S.W.3d 687 (Tex.2006) (per curiam). However, I do not believe that Guest can be taken so far as to permit us to deviate from the clear holding in McConnell or to construe rule 165a as being satisfied by the procedure sanctioned by the majority opinion.
In Guest, the court considered whether rule 165a’s provision that a motion to reinstate must be “verified by the movant or his attorney” is satisfied by a motion filed with an affidavit from the movant’s former attorney. Id. at 688. The court held it was, noting that to rule otherwise “could deprive the party of the best evidence available.” Id. at 689. The court noted:
We held in Butts v. Capitol City Nursing Home, Inc., 705 S.W.2d 696, 697 (Tex.1986) (per curiam), and again in McConnell ... that an unverified motion to reinstate does not extend the deadline for perfecting appeal. Since those cases we have repeatedly stressed that procedural rules should be construed and applied so that the right of appeal is not unnecessarily lost to technicalities .... Assuming that the rule in Butts and McConnell survives our later cases, we think the motion in this case was properly verified because it was supported by the affidavit of Guest’s attorney for much of the time the case was pending, who was aware of the facts regarding its prosecution. That' was sufficient to satisfy Rule 165a....
Id. at 688-89 (footnote omitted). Thus, Guest’s reference to the policy of construing procedural rules to avoid unnecessary, technical obstacles is made in the context of deciding that the word “attorney” in rule 165a included a former attorney. Id. This is a far cry from doing away altogether with the rule’s requirement that the motion be verified by someone.
The procedure sanctioned here is nothing like that involved in Guest, in which an actual affidavit, sworn to by the party’s former attorney, was timely filed with the court. Here we have an unsworn, bare-bones motion to reinstate, filed on December 21, 1990 — the thirtieth day after the order of dismissal. It recites only that Yvette desires to pursue the divorce action, and it contains a certificate of service stating that it was being mailed to Charles’s counsel on the day it was filed. Clearly this alone is insufficient to comply with rule 165a. However, based on the court master’s notation “Approved 12-21-90” (along with the master’s initials), the majority opinion presumes that on the day the motion was filed a hearing was held, that all parties were present or represented, that sworn testimony sufficient to support the order granting the motion was heard by the master, and that based on that testimony, the master noted “approved” on the proposed order. It then uses these presumptions as the basis for concluding that this procedure is an “adequate substitute” for rule 165a’s plain re*399quirement that a motion to reinstate be verified.
Further, Guest was decided on the premise that the holding in McConnell remains, and that premise binds us as well. See Lubbock County, Tex. v. Trammel’s Lubbock Bail Bonds, 80 S.W.3d 580, 585 (Tex.2002) (courts of appeals’s function not to abrogate or modify established precedent). Although the majority opinion obviously does not limit or overrule McConnell, the effect of its analysis is to attempt to do just that.
The parties have conducted themselves as though they were divorced in 1991, and we properly disfavor holding the 1991 decree void. However, subject-matter jurisdiction is a requirement for a valid judgment, not a technicality, and it cannot be established through the agreement of the parties or through waiver. See Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. at Dallas v. Loutzenhiser, 140 S.W.3d 351, 358 (Tex.2004). I believe we have no option in this case but to recognize the state of the record before us and to act accordingly.
The undisputed facts, the text of rule 165a, and the supreme court’s clear holding in McConnell and other cases compel the conclusion that: (1) the trial court lost its jurisdiction in this case in 1990 and has no jurisdiction to hear the Office of the Attorney General’s motion; and (2) the motion is an attempt to enforce a void judgment. Thus, I would conclude the trial court abused its discretion in denying Charles’s motion to dismiss. See Walker v. Packer, 827 S.W.2d 833, 839-41 (Tex.1992) (orig.proeeeding). I would also conclude that, under the facts of this case, Charles has no adequate remedy at law. See In re Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 148 S.W.3d 124, 135-38 (Tex.2004) (orig.proceeding).1 Thus, I would grant the petition for mandamus. Because the majority does not do so, I respectfully dissent.

. This resolution does not leave Yvette without possible remedy. Along with his motion, Charles also filed a petition for divorce against Yvette. As noted by the trial court, Charles may well be subjected to retroactive child-support obligations arising in connection with this pending divorce.