Court Opinion

ID: 9783876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:17:22.071789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:40.070920
License: Public Domain

DAVID GAULTNEY, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Rule 11 of the Texas Rules of Judicial Administration grants the authority to “decide all pretrial motions” to the pretrial judge, not the “regular” judge. Tex.R. Jud. Adm. 11.3(b). The pretrial judge presides “over all pretrial proceedings in the case in place of the regular judge.” Id. A pretrial request that a judge approve a settlement with a minor is a pretrial motion. The settlement with Firestone should have been submitted to the pretrial judge for approval. See Tex.R. Jud. Adm. 11, 11.7(a) (“This rule is to be construed and applied so as to facilitate the implementation of Rule 13 to the greatest extent possible.”); compare Tex.R. Jud. Adm. 13.6(b). The pretrial motion sought a disposition by means other than a conventional trial on the merits.
*382The claims against Firestone were not severed from the claims against Ford. The “regular” judge’s order in the minor’s settlement with Firestone remained interlocutory, and his error in deciding the issue was subject to review and correction by the pretrial judge. Essentially, when the pretrial judge considered whether to approve the attorney fees for the minor’s total recovery in the case, the pretrial judge was not bound by the prior determination by the “regular” judge. The pretrial judge acts “in place of’ the “regular” judge.
Finally, in my view the pretrial judge should not have assessed the entirety of the ad litem fees against Ford. When the attorneys joined issue over the amount of the attorney fees and filed a petition in intervention, the attorneys became the losing parties to the proceeding on that issue, not Ford. See Tex.R. Civ. P. 131, 141, 173.6(c). Compare Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 7.011 (West 2002). In my view, the attorneys should have greater responsibility for the ad litem fees under these circumstances than Ford, even under this Court’s judgment on the attorney fee issue.