Opinion Library
Texas court rulings translated into actionable litigation strategy.
This Week's DigestStrategy Category
946 opinions found
In the Interest of K.N., K.L., K.L., and K.L., Children
SCOTX
The Texas Supreme Court held that termination for endangerment under Family Code section 161.001(b)(1)(D) and (E) must be proven separately as to each parent by clear-and-convincing, legally and factually sufficient evidence. The Court rejected an approach that treated the family’s overall dysfunction as enough to terminate both parents’ rights. It upheld termination as to one parent because the record showed direct abuse allegations, visible injuries, threats against a reporter, obstruction of the investigation, refusal of services, and failure to address known safety risks. But it reversed as to the other parent because the evidence was too generalized and relied too heavily on association with the abusive household rather than parent-specific proof of knowing placement, knowing allowance, or endangering conduct.
Litigation Takeaway
"Serious parental restrictions and termination findings require parent-specific proof. If you want relief against a particular parent, build a record showing exactly what that parent did, knew, allowed, or refused to do—not just that the household was chaotic or another parent was abusive."
English v. State
COA06
In English v. State, the Texarkana Court of Appeals affirmed revocation of deferred adjudication after the State proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the father committed injury to a child. The evidence showed he grabbed his son by the throat, pushed him against a truck, and headbutted him, causing pain and a visible knot on the child’s head. The court emphasized that in a revocation proceeding the State’s burden is only a preponderance, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the trial court is the sole judge of witness credibility. Because the child’s testimony was corroborated by the brother’s observations, the deputy’s testimony, and the father’s own partial admissions, the trial court was entitled to reject the defense claim that the injury was accidental during discipline. The appellate court held there was no abuse of discretion in adjudicating guilt and revoking community supervision.
Litigation Takeaway
"When a case turns on whether a parent crossed the line from discipline into abuse, a trial judge may credit the child’s account even if testimony conflicts, some injuries are not photographed, or the accused parent claims the contact was accidental. In family-law litigation, visible injury, contemporaneous outcry, corroborating circumstances, and partial admissions can be enough to support findings that materially affect conservatorship, possession, protective orders, and supervised access."
Porter v. State
COA08
In Porter v. State, the El Paso Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to a criminal defendant’s jury-trial waiver because the appellant failed to provide the reporter’s record from the hearing where the waiver occurred. The court held that under article 1.13 and ordinary appellate principles, the appellant bears the burden to present a record affirmatively showing error; when the record is silent or incomplete, a signed written waiver and judgment recitations support the presumption of regularity and defeat the complaint. The opinion also approved admission of an eyewitness’s near-immediate description of a violent assault as an excited utterance, offering a useful evidentiary framework for admitting prompt family-violence statements in civil family-law cases.
Litigation Takeaway
"Two practical lessons: first, appeals attacking a waiver, stipulation, or procedure usually fail without a complete record of the operative hearing, so preserve and order every relevant transcript. Second, in family-violence cases, early stress-driven statements to officers or other witnesses can often come in as excited utterances if timing, stress, and connection to the event are well developed."
In the Interest of H.S., B.S., and M.S., Children
SCOTX
In In re H.S., the Supreme Court of Texas held the evidence was legally insufficient to support termination of Mother’s parental rights because the Department proved troubling circumstances, but not by clear and convincing evidence that termination itself was in the children’s best interest. The record showed Mother’s trauma history, delayed service-plan compliance, drug use, and ongoing connection to an abusive Father, but it also showed a strong parent-child bond, Mother’s reporting of Father’s violence, and evidence that the children deteriorated after removal and suspension of visitation. The Court emphasized that best interest is an independent requirement under Family Code section 161.001, that preserving the parent-child relationship is strongly presumed to be in the child’s best interest, and that termination is a last resort rather than a default response to family dysfunction. The Court affirmed termination as to Father, but reversed and rendered judgment denying termination as to Mother.
Litigation Takeaway
"Evidence that justifies intervention, restrictions, or supervised contact does not automatically justify termination. In any case involving abuse, trauma, drug use, or poor parental choices, lawyers must build a record explaining why the requested remedy is proportionate; if the goal is termination, the proof must show by clear and convincing evidence why lesser alternatives are inadequate and why permanent severance truly serves the child’s best interest."
Headrick v. State
COA05
In Headrick v. State, the Dallas Court of Appeals held that a defendant waived any complaint that the State’s motion to adjudicate was too vague because he never filed a motion to quash in the trial court. The State alleged only that Headrick had made contact with his daughter in violation of a no-contact condition of deferred adjudication, and on appeal he argued that the pleading lacked enough detail to give adequate notice. The court did not reach the merits of that notice argument, instead applying Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 33.1 and longstanding revocation precedent requiring a timely motion to quash to preserve pleading-specificity complaints. The court also upheld the adjudication on the merits, concluding the daughter’s testimony and surrounding circumstances were sufficient to show by a preponderance of the evidence that Headrick made the prohibited contact, and it rejected the disproportionality challenge to the within-range sentences.
Litigation Takeaway
"If an enforcement, contempt, modification, or other family-law pleading is too vague to let your client prepare a defense, do not save that complaint for appeal. File a specific motion to quash, special exception, or other targeted objection in the trial court and get a ruling, because notice defects that could have been cured will usually be treated as waived."
In the Interest of P.A., Jr., L.L.-A., and S.A., Children
COA06
The Texarkana Court of Appeals affirmed termination of both parents’ rights after concluding the evidence was legally and factually sufficient under Texas Family Code Section 161.001(b)(1)(D) and (E) and on best interest. The court relied on evidence of repeated methamphetamine use, multiple refused or missed drug tests, failure to complete treatment and court-ordered services, instability, and unsafe parental decision-making, including Mother’s association with a dangerous individual. The court held that this pattern supported findings that the children were exposed to endangering conditions and that the parents engaged in a continuing course of endangering conduct. The children’s success in a safe kinship placement supported the best-interest finding. As to Mother, the court also noted that unchallenged predicate findings under Section 161.001(b)(1)(I) and (P) independently supported affirmance.
Litigation Takeaway
"In Texas child-related cases, courts can infer endangerment from a pattern of drug use, test avoidance, service-plan noncompliance, and unsafe associates even without one dramatic harmful event. For trial lawyers, small facts build a powerful endangerment record; for appellate lawyers, failing to challenge every predicate ground can forfeit the appeal."
In the Interest of B.A. and B.A., Children
COA02
The Fort Worth Court of Appeals affirmed termination of the mother’s parental rights, holding the evidence was legally and factually sufficient under Texas Family Code § 161.001(b)(1)(D) and (E) and on best interest. The record showed repeated domestic violence by the father, the mother’s knowledge of that violence, her repeated minimization and recantation of serious assaults, her continued facilitation of the father’s return after arrests, and her denial of drug-use concerns. The court analyzed subsection (D) as an endangering environment case and subsection (E) as an endangering course-of-conduct case, concluding that the mother’s failure to protect the children from recurring violence and instability supported both predicates. The same evidence also supported the trial court’s finding that termination was in the children’s best interest.
Litigation Takeaway
"In family-law cases, minimization of domestic violence can be as damaging as the violence itself. A parent’s recantation, selective memory, denial of risk, and continued association with a violent partner can support findings on endangerment, credibility, protective capacity, and best interest across termination, custody, modification, and protective-order litigation."
Bruno Gonzalez v. The State of Texas
COA05
In Gonzalez v. State, the Dallas Court of Appeals held the evidence was legally sufficient to support a conviction for assault causing bodily injury—family violence. The defendant argued the State failed to prove the complainant’s identity because of a name discrepancy, failed to prove bodily injury because the complainant later minimized the assault and the bruises were not tied precisely to the charged date, and failed to prove the required mental state. Applying Jackson v. Virginia and Texas variance law, the court held the complainant’s exact name was not a substantive element and the evidence showed the person named in the information and the person proved at trial were the same individual. The court further held the jury could credit the 911 outcry, officer testimony, photographs of bruising, and surrounding circumstances over later recantation-style statements, and could infer intent, knowledge, or recklessness from the assaultive conduct and knife-related intimidation. The conviction was affirmed.
Litigation Takeaway
"Contemporaneous family-violence evidence—especially 911 calls, officer observations, photographs, and other corroborating records—can outweigh later recantation or minimization. In family-law cases, do not assume a changed story, name discrepancy, or imprecise injury timing defeats a violence finding; build or attack the case around corroboration, causation, and credibility."
In the Matter of the Marriage of Melissa A. Paredes v. Trini J. Paredes, Jr. and In the Interest of V.N.P. and T.J.P. III, Children
COA05
In Paredes v. Paredes, the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed an enforcement judgment based on a divorce decree provision requiring the wife to pay the husband “twelve months’ worth of the proceeds” if she sold certain real property. After the wife sold the property, the husband asked the trial court to enforce the decree and relied on an email and his own calculation to argue the phrase meant one year’s worth of annualized net proceeds. The appellate court held that the decree’s operative language was not merely ambiguous but facially unintelligible, because proceeds cannot coherently be measured in units of time. Applying Texas law requiring judgments to be definite enough to be executed from their four corners, the court concluded the provision was a nullity and could not be enforced through extra-textual evidence or the parties’ claimed shared understanding. The court therefore reversed the damages award and the derivative attorney’s-fees awards and remanded the case.
Litigation Takeaway
"If a divorce decree’s property language does not state a clear, mathematically coherent obligation on its face, it may be unenforceable altogether. Family-law litigators should draft future-sale and deferred-payment provisions with precise formulas, defined terms, and objective triggers, because emails, testimony, or course of dealing will not rescue a decree that is unintelligible as written."
Blair v. Blair
COA02
In Blair v. Blair, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals upheld a post-divorce order appointing a receiver to sell marital real property because the 2013 divorce decree expressly authorized either party to seek a receiver if the property was not sold by March 15, 2014. The court treated the receivership as a straightforward enforcement of the decree’s property-division terms rather than an extraordinary equitable remedy requiring separate proof of waste, imminent harm, or inadequate legal remedies. The court also rejected the appellant’s limitations, laches, dormancy, and due-process complaints because they were either not preserved in the trial court, not supported by the appellate record, or contradicted by record evidence showing notice. The court held the trial court did not abuse its discretion in appointing the receiver.
Litigation Takeaway
"If a divorce decree includes a clear receiver-on-default provision for sale of real property, enforcing that provision years later is much easier and more likely to survive appeal. For both sides, Blair is also a preservation case: defenses like limitations, laches, dormancy, and due process must be clearly raised, supported by evidence, and ruled on in the trial court, or they will likely fail on appeal."