Court Opinion

ID: 9387244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-17 09:07:54.424435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:12.327397
License: Public Domain

In the
                   Court of Appeals
           Second Appellate District of Texas
                    at Fort Worth
                ___________________________
                     No. 02-22-00149-CV
                ___________________________

                 DARRYL HEFFNER, Appellant

                                V.

TIMOTHY HEFFNER, MATTHEW HEFFNER, AND JONATHAN HEFFNER,
                       Appellees

             On Appeal from the 235th District Court
                     Cooke County, Texas
                 Trial Court No. CV21-00248

            Before Sudderth, C.J.; Kerr and Birdwell, JJ.
          Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Sudderth
                           MEMORANDUM OPINION

      Appellant Darryl Heffner attempts to appeal from three trial court orders: two

orders expunging notices of lis pendens and one scheduling order.              Appellees

Timothy Heffner, Matthew Heffner, and Jonathan Heffner have moved to dismiss

this appeal for want of jurisdiction. Appellant has filed a response to the dismissal

motion.

      Generally, appeals may be taken only from final judgments or appealable

interlocutory orders. In re Guardianship of Jones, 629 S.W.3d 921, 924 (Tex. 2021);

Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191, 195 (Tex. 2001). Orders expunging notices

of lis pendens are neither final nor subject to interlocutory appeal. Smith v. Schwartz,

No. 02-15-00146-CV, 2015 WL 3645862, at *1 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth June 11,

2015, no pet.) (per curiam) (mem. op.). The same is true of scheduling orders; they

are neither final nor subject to interlocutory appeal. P.K. v. S.B., No. 02-19-00141-CV,

2019 WL 3756210, at *1 n.1 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Aug. 8, 2019, no pet.) (per

curiam) (mem. op.); Thomas v. Pugliese, No. 02-17-00407-CV, 2017 WL 6616243, at *1

(Tex. App.—Fort Worth Dec. 21, 2017, no pet.) (per curiam) (mem. op.).

      Nonetheless, Appellant opposes Appellees’ motion to dismiss this appeal. He

asserts that “[e]xpungement is tantamount to dismissal” of his case.            Although

Appellant’s legal rationale is unclear, from what we can gather, Appellant contends

that expunging the two notices of lis pendens reflected “[t]he trial [court’s] perspective

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that [he] has no ownership interest in either property” and thus implicitly resolved

Appellant’s claims against him.1

       This is not the case. A notice of lis pendens does not adjudicate the property’s

ownership; it merely “broadcasts ‘to the world’ the existence of ongoing litigation

regarding ownership of the property.” Sommers for Ala. & Dunlavy, Ltd. v. Sandcastle

Homes, Inc., 521 S.W.3d 749, 753 (Tex. 2017) (quoting Tex. Prop. Code Ann.

§ 13.004(a)). For much the same reason, expunging the “broadcast[]” is not a “full-

blown adverse judgment on the merits.” Id. at 753–57 (rejecting intermediate court’s

interpretation of expungement’s effect on notice of lis pendens).           Expungement

“restor[es] the chain of title free of the record notice of [the] potential claim of

interest” but does not leave the “persons claiming an interest in [the] property . . . in a

worse position for having filed a [later-expunged] lis pendens . . . than had they not

filed one.” Id. at 756–57.

       There are numerous grounds for expunging a notice of lis pendens that have

nothing to do with the merits of the property-related dispute. See, e.g., Tex. Prop.

Code Ann. § 12.0071(c)(3) (requiring expungement if “the person who filed the notice

for record did not serve a copy of the notice on each party [statutorily] entitled to a

copy”); In re Collins, 172 S.W.3d 287, 293 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2005, orig.

       1
        Appellant further contends that the trial court’s failure to set a trial date in the
scheduling order evidenced its recognition that the expungements resolved all pending
issues.

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proceeding) (noting that “the suit on which the lis pendens is based must claim a

direct interest in real property, not a collateral one”).

       Here, the trial court expunged the notices because it determined that “the

pleading on which the notice[s were] based d[id] not contain a real property claim.”

Tex. Prop. Code Ann. § 12.0071(c)(1). The trial court could rule on this issue without

resolving the merits of Appellant’s various trust-related claims—claims which include,

inter alia, breach of fiduciary duty and disqualification of Appellees as trustees. The

same is true for the scheduling order; the trial court could schedule discovery

deadlines without finally resolving the merits of the case. Nothing in the three

challenged orders (1) “actually dispose[d] of every pending claim and party” or

(2) “clearly and unequivocally state[d] that it finally dispose[d] of all claims and

parties.” Patel v. Nations Renovations, LLC, No. 21-0643, 2023 WL 1871558, at *3 (Tex.

Feb. 10, 2023) (quoting Jones, 629 S.W.3d at 924); Lehmann, 39 S.W.3d at 205. In fact,

the scheduling order reflects the opposite: that pending parties and claims remain.

Otherwise, there would be no reason to schedule discovery deadlines.

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       Because there is neither a final order nor an appealable interlocutory order, we

grant Appellees’ motion and dismiss this case for want of jurisdiction. See Tex. R.

App. P. 42.3(a), 43.2(f).

                                                     /s/ Bonnie Sudderth

                                                     Bonnie Sudderth
                                                     Chief Justice

Delivered: April 13, 2023

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