Court Opinion

ID: 4257417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2018-03-22 20:33:27.86471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:24:24.428937
License: Public Domain

In The

                                Court of Appeals
                    Ninth District of Texas at Beaumont
                           ____________________
                              NO. 09-17-00459-CV
                           ____________________

                   AMANDA JANE REYNOLDS, Appellant

                                         V.

STEPHEN DUANE WELLMAN AKA JACK DAVID WELLMAN, Appellee
_______________________________________________________            ______________

                On Appeal from the County Court at Law No. 3
                        Montgomery County, Texas
                      Trial Cause No. 17-05-05353-CV
________________________________________________________             _____________

                                     ORDER

      Appellant, Amanda Jane Reynolds, filed a motion on February 16, 2018,

challenging the trial court’s order sustaining the court reporters’ contests to

Reynolds’s Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs. See Tex. R.

Civ. P. 145(g)(1). A clerk’s record and a reporter’s record of the proceedings on the

claim of indigence have been filed with the Court of Appeals. See Tex. R. Civ. P.

145(g)(3).

      The court reporter certified that Reynolds demonstrated her ability to pay for

the record by paying for the reporter’s record before the date she claimed she was
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indigent. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 145(f)(1). Reynolds asked the trial court to confirm her

indigent status without a hearing because the contests were filed more than ten days

after Reynolds filed her statement of inability to pay costs. The trial court denied

Reynolds’s request to deny the contests without a hearing.1 See Tex. R. Civ. P.

145(f)(5). Reynolds failed to appear at the hearing to prove her inability to pay costs.

See id. Finding that Reynolds failed to appear and prove that she is unable to pay

costs, the trial court sustained the challenge and ordered Reynolds to pay costs. See

Tex. R. Civ. P. 145(f)(6).

      Having reviewed the motion and the record on the claim of indigence, we

conclude that the trial court acted within its discretion by sustaining the contests. See

Basaldua v. Hadden, 298 S.W.3d 238, 241 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2009, no pet.)

(noting that trial court’s order sustaining contest is reviewed under abuse of

discretion standard). Accordingly, we deny Reynolds’s motion. See Tex. R. Civ. P.

145(g)(4).

      ORDER ENTERED March 21, 2018.

                                                                  PER CURIAM

Before Kreger, Horton and Johnson, JJ.

      1
         Reynolds did not ask to appear by telephone. See Vodicka v. Tobolowsky,
No. 05-17-00961-CV, 2017 WL 5150992, at *1 (Tex. App.—Dallas Nov. 7, 2017,
no pet.) (mem. op.) (“The burden rests squarely on the declarant to request access to
the court through an alternative means such as by telephone and to demonstrate why
a trial court should authorize it.”).
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