Court Opinion

ID: 9772215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:10:33.390617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:42.662994
License: Public Domain

HECHT, Justice,
joined by CORNYN and ENOCH, Justices, dissenting.
The Court’s reluctance to allow a judgment to be set aside because a small, although indispensable, part of the statement of facts has been destroyed, is understandable. Its willingness to stretch the rules of appellate procedure to accomplish a desired result in this case, irrespective of the significant consequences to other cases, is less defensible.
Rule 50(e), Tex.R.App.P., states in part: “If the appellant has made a timely request for a statement of facts, but the court reporter’s notes and records have been lost or destroyed without appellant’s fault, the appellant is entitled to a new trial unless the parties agree on a statement of facts.” Here, the court reporter’s notes and records of a 1982 special appearance hearing have been lost or destroyed, and the parties have *372not agreed on a statement of facts. Consequently, Minns, the appellant in the court of appeals, is entitled to a new trial if he made timely request for a statement of facts, and the missing part of the record is not his fault. The Court concludes that Minns did not make a timely request for a statement of facts, and therefore he is at fault for the missing record.
In determining whether Minns timely requested the statement of facts, the Court ignores the only rule which suggests when such a request must be made. Rule 53(a), Tex.R.App.P., states:
The appellant, at or before the time prescribed for perfecting appeal, shall make a written request to the official court reporter designating the portion of the evidence and other proceedings to be included therein. A copy of such request shall be filed with the clerk of the trial court and another copy served on the appellee. Failure to timely request the statement of facts under this paragraph shall not prevent the filing of a statement of facts or a supplemental statement of facts within the time prescribed by Rule 54(a).
The clear import of this rule is that a request is timely if it is made about the same time appeal is perfected. Minns complied with this rule: judgment was rendered July 10, 1991, the deadline for perfecting appeal was October 8, 1991, and Minns requested the statement of facts September 25, 1991.
The Court holds, however, that Minns was at fault for waiting to request preparation of the appellate record until it was time for him to appeal, which was nine years after the hearing for which there is no transcript. He should have acted much earlier, the Court concludes, even though he did not know that he would suffer an adverse judgment and, find it necessary to appeal. The Court’s language bears repeating:
The duty to protect the record does not spring into being only at the conclusion of trial, when the appellant begins the steps to perfect an appeal. At every stage of the proceedings in the trial court, litigants must exercise some diligence to ensure that a record of any error will be available in the event that an appeal will be necessary.
Ante at 370 (emphasis added). Since court reporters are not required to preserve their notes for more than three years after they were taken, Tex.Gov’t Code § 52.046(a)(4), the Court holds that parties and counsel must take action to preserve the statement of facts for an eventual appeal if there is a possibility the records might be destroyed.
How? The Court suggests that a litigant may request that notes of a proceeding be preserved for more than three years. Even if such request is made, the court reporter is under no duty to comply with it; as the Court notes, a court reporter is allowed to destroy notes three years after they are taken. The only other alternative — and the only really effective one — is to have the notes transcribed. In other words, the only way a party can be sure that he will not be at fault for the loss of the statement of facts is to have every hearing transcribed at the time it occurs or shortly thereafter. A party who does not have every hearing transcribed within three years of its occurrence will be at fault if the court reporter loses the notes of the hearing or destroys them as permitted by the Government Code.
The Court appears not to notice the burden it creates for litigants, court reporters and trial courts. It is not unusual for a case — particularly one that may ultimately be appealed — to involve a number of hearings over months or years. After judgment is finally rendered, pretrial hearings may appear important or unimportant to an appeal. A party may choose to have a record of such hearing included in the statement of facts, or he may determine that such hearings are irrelevant to the issues on appeal. In short, if the decision of what to include in the statement of facts can be made at the time appeal is perfected, the notes of some hearings may be transcribed and others may not be. The effect of the Court’s holding is that a prudent party must have the notes of all hearings transcribed as the litigation proceeds. This represents a significant cost to litigants, a significant involvement of additional time for court reporters, and because of this latter reason, some impairment of *373trial courts’ ability to conduct hearings requiring the presence of court reporters with less available time.
The rule the Court announces cannot be found among the Rules of Appellate Procedure, unless one reads the “at or before the time prescribed for perfecting appeal” language of Rule 53(a) to mean long before. Rulemaking by opinion is not a wise course, to the extent it is even authorized. It does not permit the consideration and comment by the bench, bar and public that ordinarily informs our rules revision process. Rule-making to achieve desirable results in particular cases is even less advisable.
From now on, “the party aggrieved by a ruling ... must take the steps to ensure proper review.” Ante at 371. This rule cannot help but worsen the cost and delay of litigation. The court of appeals followed Rule 50(e), and I would affirm its judgment. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.