Court Opinion

ID: 9665374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:46:20.722373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:15.136479
License: Public Domain

CAMPBELL, Judge,
concurring.
The majority opinion holds that the envelope was “not improperly addressed” and relies on the principle of constructive possession to support reversal of the Court of Appeals. Under the principle of constructive possession, the bond is not deemed to be timely filed but in fact is timely filed because the bond arrived in the receiving department on or before September 9, 1991. If the bond is timely filed, there is no need to invoke Rule 4(b) in order to deem the filing as timely.
I would rather not rely on the principle of constructive possession, if at all possible. Implicit in the phrase “constructive possession” is the reality that there is no actual possession. Constructive possession is a concept of judicial equity and should be utilized sparingly.
Furthermore, to use the principle of constructive possession in this case may greatly expand the principle’s reach. To hold that constructive possession applies to the present case could mean that once an instrument arrives in a building’s mail department, the instrument has been properly filed.
The cases dealing with constructive possession typically involve situations where the appellant has done everything within his power to timely file an instrument but was thwarted by some action (or inaction) on the part of the clerk’s office. See, Mr. Penguin Tuxedo Rental v. NCR Corp., 787 S.W.2d 371 (Tex.1990). In addition, there is usually some overt exercise of control over mail delivery beyond the mere signing for a document. See, Id. at 372.
In the present case, Appellant has not made any such showing. The record is exceedingly sparse. From the Court of Appeals opinion, it appears that (1) the bond was sent before the due date and (2) it was filed within the ten day grace period. On these facts alone, I find it hard to justify the sharp knife of judicial equity.
We should find the first line of the address to be sufficient to comply with Rule 4(b). The only contention here is that the bond should have been sent to the “Felony Bond Forfeiture Clerk” instead of the “Bond Forfeiture Clerk”. I find such a distinction meaningless where there are only two clerks in a relatively small building. Furthermore, the ten day window in Rule 4(b) acts as an absolute bar. Whether or not the bond was sent to the “proper clerk” or was “properly addressed”, when the ten days elapse, the time period has expired. The absolute deadline will preclude most arguments about what is a proper address or about whether the envelope was sent to the proper clerk, and this court can spend its time on more important *442issues. For these reasons, I concur in the result only.
BAIRD, J., joins.