Court Opinion

ID: 9640661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:11:23.87689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:31.673315
License: Public Domain

EVA M. GUZMAN, Justice,
dissenting on Rehearing.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s grant of appellants’ motion for rehearing.
Despite the language in our former opinion, the following language from the Texas Supreme Court is dispositive: “The absence from the record of affirmative proof that notice of intent to dismiss or of the order of dismissal was provided does not establish error.’” Alexander v. Lynda’s Boutique, 134 S.W.3d 845, 849 (Tex.2004) (quoting Gen. Elec. Co. v. Falcon Ridge Apartments, Joint Venture, 811 S.W.2d *519942, 943-44 (Tex.1991) (refusing to consider, as proof of lack of notice, affidavits filed in the appellate court “from both the district clerk and its counsel averring respectively that notice was neither given nor received”)).1 Because the clerk of the district court has no affirmative duty to make a record showing whether it did or did not give the required notice,2 the absence of such a record is no more than silence:
[T]he fact that the record is silent about the sending of notices under Rule 165a does not establish error on the face of the record. And mere silence as to whether notice was sent does not establish that notice was not sent or that it was sent to the wrong address. Accordingly, when the record does not reflect whether notice was sent, that is insufficient to establish reversible error in a restricted appeal proceeding.
Id. at 849-50.
Under the precedent by which we are bound, the materials presented do not indicate whether there was a failure to send the required notice or whether notice was sent but the clerk of the court simply made no record of its action. Consequently, I would deny the motion for rehearing.

. 811 S.W.2d at 943.

. TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 51.303 (Vernon 2005) (addressing duties and powers of the clerk of a district court; although the clerk is required to record the acts and proceedings of court, enter all judgments, and record all executions issued, the statute does not contain an affirmative requirement that the clerk record the mailing or failure to mail a required notice); TEX. R. CIV. P. 165a (clerk is required to send notice, but rule contains no requirement that clerk make a record showing that notice was sent).