Second Court of Appeals

Week of April 4, 2016

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of April 4, 2016.

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

Rogers v. State, No. 02-14-00499-CR, (Apr. 7, 2016) (Dauphinot, J., joined by Gabriel and Sudderth, JJ.).

Held: Appellant had an opportunity to raise his sentencing complaint before the trial court pronounced sentence because the trial judge announced the sentence he planned to impose and then gave Appellant an opportunity to allocute. Appellant had an opportunity to raise his sentencing complaint in the trial court after sentencing by filing a motion for new trial alleging the complaint. Because Appellant did not take advantage of either opportunity, he forfeited his complaint.

In re a Child, No. No. 02-15-00118-CV, (Apr. 7, 2016) (Walker, J., joined by Dauphinot, J.; Sudderth, J., concurs with opinion).

Held: We affirm the trial court’s summary judgment for The Gladney Center for Adoption because Gladney conclusively negated the third element of Mother and Father’s bill-of-review proceeding.

Dissent: I disagree that the trial court “correctly” recharacterized The Gladney Center for Adoption’s three-page, bare-bones “Motion to Dismiss” as a motion for summary judgment pursuant to rule of civil procedure 71 when the dismissal motion made no mention of rule 166a, never employed the terms “summary” or “summary judgment,” included no reference to the summary judgment standard of review, provided no guidance on whether a traditional or no-evidence burden should apply, and did not request summary judgment relief. But I concur in the outcome because the trial court cured the erroneous redesignation by providing the procedural safeguards required to grant summary judgment.