Linda Jensen Brys v. Calvin Cobb

Summary

The First Court of Appeals of Texas held that the trial court lacked plenary power to grant Calvin Cobb’s motions challenging domestication of a California default judgment because the motions were filed after the applicable deadline. The court declared the trial court’s orders void, vacated them, and dismissed the appeal, leaving the California judgment intact as an enforceable Texas judgment.

Holdings

1. A foreign judgment properly filed under the UEFJA becomes enforceable as a Texas judgment on the filing date. Unless a timely motion for new trial is filed, the trial court's plenary power expires thirty days after that filing.
2. Cobb's motion for new trial filed more than a year after domestication and his motion to clarify and declare the judgment void filed fourteen months later were untimely.
3. Orders issued after the trial court's plenary power expired are void and have no legal effect. The trial court's orders granting a new trial and declaring the California judgment void were therefore nullities.
4. An appellate court lacks jurisdiction to address the merits of an appeal from void orders; it may determine that the orders are void and enter an appropriate disposition.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the Texas trial court retained plenary power to grant Cobb's motion for new trial filed more than a year after the foreign judgment was filed for domestication.
2. Whether the Texas trial court retained jurisdiction to declare the domesticated California judgment void based on lack of personal jurisdiction after its plenary power had expired.
3. What disposition was appropriate when the orders appealed from were void.

Disposition

vacated