Court Opinion

ID: 9638955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:59:46.322252+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:10.688232
License: Public Domain

*136
ON MOTION FOR REHEARING OR REINSTATEMENT AND TO EXTEND TIME FOR FILING CLERK’S RECORD

Following our dismissal of her appeal, Minerva Rodriguez filed her motion for rehearing and/or reinstatement of appeal and to extend time for filing of clerk’s record. Our dismissal arose from appellant’s failure to arrange for payment for the clerk’s record. In her pending motion, appellant argues that we erred in dismissing her appeal because she is willing to pay for the record but was never contacted and told how much to pay. We deny the motion in its entirety.
In addressing this motion, a brief recapitulation of the case’s history is necessary. Appellant’s probation was revoked on November 10, 1997. Notice of appeal was timely filed. Depending on whether a motion for new trial was filed, which we cannot determine without the clerk’s record, said record became due on either January 9, 1998, or March 10, 1998. Regardless of the deadline, the record was never filed. This court received a request for additional time to file the clerk’s record from the district clerk on March 11, 1998. The basis for the request was that appellant did not file a designation of record, did not pay for the record, and did not return the clerk’s telephone calls. We granted the motion and extended the deadline to April 9,1998, to no avail.
On April 16, 1998, we demanded, by letter sent to appellant’s counsel, that arrangements be made within ten days of that date for payment for the clerk’s record. Appellant was specifically informed that her appeal might be dismissed for failing to make such arrangements. We received no response. By letter dated May 11, 1998, the district clerk informed us that appellant still had not paid for the record nor responded to her calls. We dismissed appellant’s case on May 15,1998.
The present motion was postmarked June 1, the last possible day for filing. See Tex.R.App. P. 49.1 (requiring that the motion be filed within 15 days of the appellate court’s judgment). In it, appellant denies receiving copies of the March 11 and May 11 letters from the District Clerk. She further denies having any fee for the clerk’s record quoted to her or her attorney. According to appellant, the matter could easily have been handled by her attorney’s staff. We agree, which brings us to the very reason her case was dismissed.
Conspicuously absent from appellant’s motion for rehearing, or in the record as a whole for that matter, are claims of any attempt to arrange for payment of the clerk’s record. Even now, after explicit instructions to arrange payment, a dismissal for failing to heed those instructions, and an additional thirty days thereafter, there is no indication that appellant, her attorney, or anyone on his staff has asked the clerk how much the record will cost. Instead, we are told that appellant is ready and willing to pay but the clerk just has not submitted a fee.
The duty of the clerk to file the record arises after the appellant pays for its preparation or makes arrangements for its payment. Tex.R.App. P. 35.3(a)(2). There is no accompanying duty to compel payment. And, appellant’s attempt to cast herself as the victim of a neglectful clerk rings hollow, given the circumstances before us.
We accordingly overrule her motion for rehearing. As our ruling on the motion for rehearing is dispositive of the motion for extension of time to file the clerk’s record, we do not address it.1

. As to the extension requested, we note that appellant failed to indicate the length of the extension sought. Same Was mandated by Tex.R.App. P. 10.5(b)(1)(B). Thus, the motion was subject to denial on that basis alone.