Court Opinion

ID: 9964883
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-05-01 06:10:58.798092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:45.737848
License: Public Domain

Dismiss and Opinion Filed April, 2024

                                       In The
                            Court of Appeals
                     Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
                               No. 05-23-00721-CV

                      BARBARA TENNELL, Appellant
                                 V.
                     ARNS INVESTMENTS LLC, Appellee

                On Appeal from the County Court at Law No. 2
                            Dallas County, Texas
                    Trial Court Cause No. CC-23-01870-B

                        MEMORANDUM OPINION
                  Before Justices Reichek, Goldstein, and Garcia
                           Opinion by Justice Reichek
      We questioned our jurisdiction over this appeal from the county court’s July

19, 2023 final judgment of eviction following foreclosure as it appeared appellant

was no longer in possession of the premises at issue and the appeal had become

moot. See Marshall v. Housing Auth. of City of San Antonio, 198 S.W.3d 782, 785,

787 (Tex. 2006) (possession of premises is only issue in forcible detainer action;

issue of possession becomes moot when tenant vacates property unless tenant has

“potentially meritorious claim of right to current, actual possession”); Olley v. HVM,

L.L.C., 449 S.W.3d 573, 575 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2014, pet. denied)
(appellate courts lack jurisdiction over moot controversies).                       Although appellant

filed jurisdictional briefing at our request, she failed to demonstrate our jurisdiction

over the appeal.1 See Marshall, 198 S.W.3d at 785.

        When, as here, a case becomes moot on appeal, the appellate court must set

aside the trial court’s judgment and dismiss the case.                          See id. at 785, 790.

Accordingly, we vacate the trial court’s final judgment and dismiss the case as moot.

See id. at 790.

                                                        /Amanda L. Reichek//
230721f.p05                                             AMANDA L. REICHEK
                                                        JUSTICE

        1
          Appellant makes a single assertion in her jurisdictional letter brief: that she vacated the premises
after being served with a writ of possession, but the writ was wrongfully served. In support, she notes that,
on August 8, 2023, she paid the supersedeas bond set by the county court in its August 2, 2023 order setting
supersedeas bond.

         Generally, enforcement of a judgment must be suspended if the judgment is superseded. See TEX.
R. APP. P. 24.1(f). However, under Texas Property Code section 24.007, governing an appeal from a county
court’s final judgment of eviction, an eviction judgment cannot be stayed unless appellant supersedes the
judgment within ten days of the judgment being signed. See TEX. PROP. CODE ANN. § 24.007. Although
appellant superseded the judgment within ten days of the supersedeas order being signed, the deadline to
supersede the judgment ran from the date the eviction judgment was signed, see id., and appellant paid the
supersedeas bond twenty days from that date. The judgment, therefore, could be enforced.

                                                    –2–
                            Court of Appeals
                     Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
                                 JUDGMENT

BARBARA TENNELL, Appellant                   On Appeal from the County Court at
                                             Law No. 2, Dallas County, Texas
No. 05-23-00721-CV          V.               Trial Court Cause No. CC-23-01870-
                                             B.
ARNS INVESTMENTS LLC,                        Opinion delivered by Justice
Appellee                                     Reichek, Justices Goldstein and
                                             Garcia participating.

      In accordance with this Court’s opinion of this date, we VACATE the trial
court’s final judgment and DISMISS the case.

Judgment entered this 24th day of April, 2024.

                                       –3–