Court Opinion

ID: 9596384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:49:00.753334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:50.682743
License: Public Domain

TOM GRAY, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
This appeal presents an issue that desperately needs to be resolved for the “new” no evidence motion for summary judgment rule to have the full benefit of its intended effect. Tex.R. Civ. P. 166a(i). What does it mean to have no evidence of a challenged element?
In this case, the Court is relying on an inference that should not be relied upon. The evidence relied upon by the Court is from the documents in the trial court’s case file. The Court relies upon the absence of any evidence in the case file to infer that no continuance was ordered. The Court states; “The file in the Rodriguez case does not contain an order of the 54th District Court continuing Rodriguez’s prosecution ... Nor does the docket sheet reflect that the 54th District Court signed such an order.” And then the Court’s faulty conclusion, “Thus, a fact issue remains on the question of whether Rodriguez’s prosecution was continued by court order....”
But, wait! There is no indication in this record that a court order continuing this matter would normally appear in the case file. Remember, the defendant was wait*560ing to be indicted for a felony by the grand jury. There is no showing that an order regarding grand jury proceedings, continuing a matter from one term of the grand jury to the next, would appear in an individual case file. This is the distinction between the absence of evidence on the one hand and evidence of a negative on the other. What Gonzales needed to have evidence of is that there was no continuance. All the record has in it is a void regarding this issue.
The critical distinction between the result in this case and Acevedo is that in Acevedo, the bondsman introduced the orders which listed the names of the defendants whose cases were carried over from one term of court to the next. The court noted that, “The case against Punjabi was carried over by order of the court from the July/August 1995 term of court to the September/October and to the November/December 1995 terms of court. Punjabi’s name did not appear on the list of cases continued into the January/February 1996 term of court. On January 10, 1996, Punjabi was indicted by the Bexar County Grand Jury....” Acevedo v. State, 18 S.W.3d 775, 776 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 2000, pet. ref'd).
In this case, the orders regarding the cases continued from one term of court to the next were not presented as summary judgment evidence by Gonzales. Without some evidence of what cases were carried over, all we are left with is nothing-nothing to show that the prosecution was continued, nothing to show that the prosecution was not continued. Without showing that something should be there, you cannot properly draw an inference from the presence of nothing. In this case, nothing equals no evidence. Because it was Gonzales’s burden in response to a no-evidence summary judgment motion to present some evidence on each element of its affirmative defense, and it faded to do so, the trial court correctly rendered judgment forfeiting the bond.
Based upon the forgoing, I would affirm the summary judgment. Because the Court does not, I respectfully dissent.