Jurisdictional limitation applies when case is transferred from one Court of Appeals to another - In re M.E.H. (Tex.App. - Houston, Oct. 9, 2018)

Jurisdictional limitation applies when Texas Supreme Court transfers appeal from one COA to another for docket-equalization purposes 

In re M.E.H., Nos. 14-18-00675-CV and 14-18-00680-CV (Tex.App. – Houston [14^th Dist.] Oct. 9, 2018) (superseding mem. op., prior order withdrawn). 

It makes perfect sense for the Texas Supreme Court to even out the dockets among the 14 courts of appeals with transfers orders that send batches of cases from overworked appellate courts to those with spare capacity due to lower demand. To the extent there are inter-jurisdictional differences in the caselaw of different appellate courts and their respective districts, the conflict is addressed by the rule that the receiving COA is to apply the binding precedents of the sending COA. But that does not address all contingencies.

Example of SCOTX Order Transferring Appeals Cases 

Occasionally, a court of appeals faces the issue of whether a nonviable attempted appeal from an interlocutory or otherwise non-appealable order should be deemed a petition for mandamus relief instead.

In a recent family law dispute transferred from the Third Court of Appeals in Austin, the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston concluded that doing so was not an option because the attempted appeals had not originated from its own appellate district (which is coextensive with the First Appellate District) and that it had no mandamus jurisdiction over the judge in Travis County who had signed the challenged orders. That court is outside the appellate district of the two Houston-based courts of appeals. Mandamus jurisdiction apparently did not piggyback onto and travel with the Supreme Court’s docket equalization transfer order that sent the underlying cases to Houston.

Order filed September 27, 2018, Withdrawn; Appeals Dismissed; and Memorandum Opinion filed October 9, 2018.

In The

Fourteenth Court of Appeals

NO. 14-18-00675-CV NO. 14-18-00680-CV

IN THE INTEREST OF M. E. H.

On Appeal from the 345th District Court

Travis County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. D-1-AG-15-002375

MEMORANDUM OPINION

We withdraw our order dated September 27, 2018.

Appellant C.H. is involved in litigation in Travis County regarding conservatorship of her son, M.E.H. She appealed to the Third Court of Appeals from a final order signed February 2, 2018, called “Order in Suit to Modify Parent-Child Relationship.” The Supreme Court of Texas transferred that appeal to this court on April 11, 2018. See Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 73.001. That appeal is pending as number 14-18-00281-CV (“the First Appeal”).

The trial court signed several more orders during the pendency of the First Appeal. Appellant filed pro se notices of appeal from four of those orders, and each appeal was transferred from the Third Court of Appeals to this court as follows:

14-18-00675-CV	May 10, 2018 Order on Motion for Enforcement and Further Orders (regarding C.H.’s Third Amended Motion for Enforcement and Further Orders)
14-18-00680-CV	May 10, 2018 Order on Motion to Revoke Suspension of Commitment (regarding S.K.’s Motion to Revoke Suspension of Commitment)
14-18-00681-CV	May 10, 2018 Order on Motion to Modify Judgment (regarding C.H.’s Motion to Modify Judgment)
14-18-00682-CV	July 9, 2018 Amended Order (regarding June 12, 2018 Order on Respondent’s Plea of Abatement)

None of those four orders is a final judgment or otherwise separately appealable.

For that reason, we notified the parties on August 28, 2018, that we would dismiss those four appeals for lack of jurisdiction unless any party demonstrated meritorious grounds for retaining the appeals.

In response, appellant, through a newly-retained lawyer, filed a motion in the First Appeal characterizing the orders at issue in appeals 14-18-00675-CV and 14-18-00680-CV (“the Contempt Appeals”) as orders refusing to hold the father (appellee S.K.) in contempt and holding appellant in contempt, respectively. Contempt orders are not appealable but are reviewable by mandamus. In re Long, 984 S.W.2d 623, 625 (Tex. 1999) (per curiam); Norman v. Norman, 692 S.W.2d 655, 655 (Tex. 1985) (per curiam). The motion asks us to (1) treat appellant’s pro se notices of appeal in the Contempt Appeals as attempts to invoke our mandamus jurisdiction, and (2) consolidate the Contempt Appeals and the First Appeal.1

Section 22.221 of the Texas Government Code establishes our mandamus jurisdiction. A court of appeals may issue a writ of mandamus against, as relevant here, “a judge of a district, statutory county, statutory probate county, or county court in the court of appeals district[.]” Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 22.221(b)(1). We lack jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus against the trial judge in this case because she is the judge of the 345th District Court of Travis County, which lies outside our district. Id. § 22.201(d) (stating Travis County lies within Third Court of Appeals District). If appellant were to seek mandamus relief from this court, we would not have jurisdiction to grant that relief.

In conclusion, we lack jurisdiction over these appeals, and we would lack jurisdiction to grant mandamus relief if we were to construe the notices of appeal as attempts to invoke our mandamus jurisdiction. Accordingly, the appeals are dismissed.

PER CURIAM

Panel consists of Justices Christopher, Jamison, and Brown.

1 The motion also abandons appeals 14-18-00681-CV and 14-18-00681-CV (“the Abandoned Appeals”). We construed that abandonment as a motion for voluntary dismissal under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 42.1(a)(1) and dismissed the Abandoned Appeals on September 18, 2018. In re M.E.H., Nos. 14-18-00681-CV, 14-18-00682-CV, 2018 WL 4427486 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Sept. 18, 2018, no pet. h.) (mem. op.) (per curiam).

Keywords: docket equalization, case-transfer among intermediate Texas courts of appeals, split of authority among appellate courts, precedents

First Court of Appeals offers trip to Houston or video link for oral argument in case transferred from the 3rd COA in Austin

COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE

FIRST DISTRICT OF TEXAS AT HOUSTON

REQUESTS RESPONSE OF THE OUT-OF-AREA PARTIES 

Appellate case name: Robert Hardie Tibaut Bowman and Powers L. Bowman v. Molly

Bowman Stephens

Appellate case number: 01-17-00522-CV

Trial court case number: D-1-GN-13-000636

Trial court: 261st District Court of Travis County

This case was transferred to this Court from the Third Court of Appeals on July 12, 2017
pursuant to the Texas Supreme Court’s docket equalization order. Oral argument for transferred
cases is governed by Section 73.003 of the Texas Government Code, which provides in relevant
part:

(a) Except as provided by Subsections (b) and (e), the justices of the court of
appeals to which a case is transferred shall hear oral argument, after due notice to
the parties or their attorneys, at the place from which the case is originally
transferred.
(b) If requested by all parties or their attorneys, the oral argument in a transferred
case may be heard in the regular place of the court to which the case is transferred.
* * *
(e) At the discretion of its chief justice, a court to which a case is transferred may
hear oral argument through the use of teleconferencing technology as provided by
Section 22.302. The court and the parties or their attorneys may participate in oral
argument from any location through the use of teleconferencing technology. The
actual and necessary expenses of the court in hearing an oral argument through the
use of teleconferencing technology shall be paid by the state from funds
appropriated for the transfer of case, as specified in Subsection (d).

TEX. GOV’T CODE § 73.003.

Please advise this Court in writing, on or before May 18, 2018, whether you have an
objection to hearing oral argument at the First Court of Appeals in Houston. If either party objects,
the Court will make arrangements to hear oral argument via video teleconference in Austin, and you will be notified of the submission date at that time.

Judge’s signature: /s/ Harvey Brown Acting individually Date: May 9, 2018

Add caption

COME SEE OUR HISTORIC JEWEL OF A COURTHOUSE

Can one Texas court of appeals make law for another? ... Apparently so, under some circumstances

TEXAS SUPREME COURT TRANSFERS CASES AMONG THE INTERMEDIATE COURTS TO EVEN OUT THE DOCKETS, BUT THIS CAN CREATE A CONUNDRUM WHEN THE INTERMEDIATE COURTS ARE SPLIT ON AN UNSETTLED LEGAL ISSUE 

Transfer of cases among the courts of appeals combined with the rule that they be decided based on the precedents of the transferring court (officially called the "transferor court") represents yet another wrinkle in what even some justices acknowledge is a byzantine court system in Texas. See, e.g., Texas Supreme Court Justice Willett's Dissent in In re Reece, 341 SW 3d 360 (Tex. 2011).

The recent decisions of the Corpus Christi and Eastland Courts of Appeals in three credit card debt cases -- all transferred from the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth -- provide an apt illustration that docket equalization can be more than a merely administrative matter. Case transfers can have significant ramifications for the evolution of the common law as articulated through the decisions of the intermediate courts when the there is no controlling authority from the state's highest court.

• Rose Core v. Citibank (South Dakota, N.A.) No. 11-13-00040-CV (Tex.App.- Eastland [11th Dist.] February 27, 2015, motion for rehearing filed)(Op by Justice John M. Bailey)(case transferred from Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth). Trial court: 362nd District Court in Denton County (Judge Bruce McFarling).  
• Marc R. Core v. Citibank, N.A., No. 13-12-00648-CV (Tex.App.- Corpus Christi, Edinburg [13th Dist.], April 9, 2015, no pet h.) (Opinion by Justice Rodriguez)(also on transfer from 2nd COA in Fort Worth). Trial court: 211th District Court in Denton County (Judge Lawrence Dee Shipman).  
• Scott Walker v. Citibank, N.A. No. 11-13-00042-CV (Tex.App.- Eastland [11th Dist.], Feb. 27, 2015, pet. to be filed under Cause No. 15-0287   (Op. by retired Justice Terry McCall, sitting by assignment) (case transferred from the 2nd Court of Appeals) Trial court: 342nd District Court in Tarrant County (Judge J. Wade Birdwell). 

All three were were transferred from the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth, but not to the same sister court. Marc R. Core v Citibank went to the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals, while the other two (Rose Core v Citibank and Scott Walker v Citibank) went to Eastland. One of the case had been appealed from Tarrant County (Fort Worth), while the other two originated in Denton County.

Both receiving courts were obligated to apply the caselaw of the Fort Worth Court of Appeals, rather than their own, but the state of the case law on the legal issue raised on those cases -- the viability of the account stated theory in the context of a defaulted credit card account, and the associated proof requirements -- was not entirely clear based on prior decisions of that court, not to mention settled.

PRIOR FORT WORTH CASE ON "ACCOUNT STATED" CLAIM BY CITIBANK 

There were two prior cases from the Fort Worth-based court, but neither of them "published" (i.e. published in the South Western Reporter), and in a prior case involving Citibank, the Fort Worth-based court of appeals had ruled that Citibank had not proven its case under the applicable evidentiary standard, and had accordingly reversed the judgment granted in the bank's favor. The court remanded for a new trial. See Morrison v. Citibank (South Dakota), N.A., 2008 W.L. 553284, 2008 Tex. App. Lexis 1692 (Tex. App. - Fort Worth 2008, no pet.) (mem. op.) (per curiam).

In Morrison, the Fort Worth-based court stated:

Assuming without deciding that account stated may be employed to collect credit card debt under Texas law, we nevertheless conclude that the evidence is too weak to support the trial court's judgment.

The court resolved the consumer's appeal of the judgment in favor of Citibank on sufficiency-of-evidence grounds and expressly declined to say whether it accepted account stated as a viable theory of recovery for credit card debt. The review was for factual sufficiency because the underlying judgment was entered after a bench trial.

In all the appellate cases involving the account-stated theory in the credit card debt context decided by other Texas courts of appeals, the creditor had won, and in most of these cases the creditor was Citibank. The bank was represented by the very same attorneys that also created the new precedent in Dallas upon which these cases rely as authority: Dulong v. Citibank (South Dakota), N.A., 261 S.W.3d 890 (Tex. App.–Dallas 2008, no pet.). Thus, the bank was in a position to cite its own prior ligation victories as legal authority.  See --> The Citibank Doctrine: Account Stated for Credit Card Debt Collection.

In Dulong, the Dallas Court of Appeals modified then-existing caselaw governing account-stated by approving it as a viable theory of collection of a financial debt incurred with a bank (as opposed to a debt incurred through purchase of goods or rendition and acceptance of services).

In subsequent cases, it stuck to its novel interpretation of the suit on account theory, and in one of those subsequent cases it overtly expressed its disagreement with the Fort Worth court's holding in Morrison, which was most directly on point in a case involving the same plaintiff. See Compton v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., 364 S.W.3d 415, 419–20 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2012, no pet.) (citing Dulong, 261 S.W.3d at 894). On multiple occasion since, the Dallas court has cited its novel precedent for the proposition that Citibank was exempted from having to prove the underlying contract if it sought judgment on account stated, which only required proof of an agreement on the amount, rather than on credit terms, and held that such an agreement on the amount could be implied, i.e. it did not have to be articulated.

Both courts that heard the three Citibank account-stated cases transferred from Fort Worth ended up distinguishing the Morrison case decided by that court, and ended up following the Dallas Court of Appeals. They did so notwithstanding the express split between the Second and the Fifth, and the Dallas court's express rejection of the holding of the sister court in Fort Worth.

COURT OF APPEALS' SPAT OVER CITIBANK'S THEORY: DALLAS VS. FORT WORTH 

The Dallas court was adamant about not having to follow the prior decisions of a sister court, and was on solid ground in taking that position in the absence of binding Texas Supreme Court precedent. The transferree courts, by contrast, were required to follow the precedents of the transferor court.

Significantly, in the prior case in which Citibank had pushed its revamped account-stated theory in the Fort Worth Court of Appeals - Morrison v Citibank -- it had failed, and that was the very case that the Dallas Court of Appeals took issue with in Compton.

Did the transferree courts acknowledge taking sides with Dallas in the Metroplex split? 

In Marc Core v Citibank, the Thirteenth Court of Appeals acknowledged the dicey issue of precedent in a footnote, pointing out that Morrison was just a memorandum opinion, but also distinguished the cases on the facts. In the Morrison case, ten accounts were involved in a single lawsuit while in both Core v Citibank cases there was only one each. ("Factually, this appeal only involves a single credit card account.", at p. 16). But that seems a lame distinction, for the law would be identical regardless of whether there is only one account or several.

The distinction of Morrison on the basis that it involved reversal of a judgment rendered after a bench trial (at p. 16) sounds equally hollow, because the evidentiary standard for entitlement to summary judgment (in Core v Citibank) was higher, not lower. In Core, Citibank had to prove all substantive elements of its cause of action conclusively, while in Morrison - which involved resolution of all issues in a trial to the bench -- it only had to prove each element under the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. Additionally, factual discrepancies and conflicts in the evidence can be resolved by the fact finder at trial, while they preclude summary disposition if they concern material issues of fact in the summary judgment context.

As for the issue whether Morrison was binding on it, the Corpus Christi court said the following about the Fort Worth court's opinion:

The fact that Morrison v. Citibank (South Dakota), N.A., is a memorandum opinion from the Second Court of Appeals is significant because this case was transferred to us from the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth pursuant to an order of the Texas Supreme Court under the authority of section 73.001 of the Texas Government Code. See No. 2-07-00130-CV, 2008 WL 553284, at *1–3 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Feb. 28, 2008, no pet.) (mem. op.) (per curiam); see also TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 73.001. In accordance with rule 41.3 of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, we are required to follow the precedent of the Fort Worth Court of Appeals “unless it appears that the transferor court itself would not be bound by that precedent.” TEX. R. APP. P. 41.3.

The jurisprudentially most significant issue in all of these cases -- transferred or otherwise -- is the legal issue of whether account stated is a proper theory for collection of a financial debt owned to a bank, rather than to a merchant and seller of goods or services.

Although the Corpus-based court cites Morrison v Citibank for the elements of account stated (along with recent cases from other courts including Dulong), the Fort Worth Court of Appeals had reserved judgment on that issue.

A DOCTRINAL QUESTION, NOT MERELY ONE OF EVIDENTIARY SUFFICIENCY 

The matter of whether "account stated" can serve as an alternative legal theory to breach of contract in a suit to recover a credit card debt, which is necessary based on a contract because statutory law requires it, is a quintessential matter of substantive law, rather than merely one of fact and sufficiency of the evidence, although the nature of the theory obviously also dictates the type or proof needed to satisfy its essential elements.

In Morrison, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals stated:

Assuming without deciding that account stated may be employed to collect credit card debt under Texas law, we nevertheless conclude that the evidence is too weak to support the trial court's judgment.

The Fort Worth Court of Appeals thus resolved Morrison's appeal of the judgment in favor of Citibank on factual sufficiency grounds and expressly declined to determine whether it accepted account stated as a viable theory of recovery for credit card debt.

It also pointed out, citing Neil v. Agris, 693 S.W.2d 604 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1985, no writ), which the Dallas Count had also cited in Dulong, that Citibank had not established the reasonableness of the price in the absence of an agreement:

[Affiant] Guenther did not testify that the prices charged were usual, customary, and reasonable, a potential alternative to proving the second element. See Neil, 693 S.W.2d at 605.

In other words, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals adhered to the precedents pre-dating the Dallas Court's Dulong decision. It relied on the case law that treats account stated and open account as claims arising from transactions involving the sale of goods or services by merchants. Under those theories, the plaintiff has the burden to prove that it provided goods or services, and the price/charges were either agreed to by the parties, or were customary and reasonable as established by other evidence, absent an agreement.

Those requirements still apply in a suit on sworn account when the petition does not strictly conform with the requirements of Rule 185, or when the Defendant files a sworn denial and thus neutralizes the evidentiary benefits of Rule 185. --> Credit card debt suit cannot be brought as a sworn-account.

CAN ONE COURT OF APPEALS SET BINDING PRECEDENT FOR ANOTHER?

It is probably fair to say that the courts in Corpus Christi and Eastland were not bound by Morrison, and that they did establish the precedent that the Fort Worth court was not prepared to set in Morrison, even though the Fort Worth court could have done so, -- one way or the other.

Does that mean that the Fort Worth court is bound by the holding of the Thirteenth and Eleventh Courts of Appeals regarding account stated as a proper theory for credit card debt collection in the transferred case? Apparently so.

But will the Fort Worth court accept the legitimacy of another court acting in its stead when the court had chosen not to decide whether a credit card debt collection case is properly brought as an "account stated" claim, and had save that issue for another day? Particularly when considering that the Dulong case, on which the subsequent account-stated cases rely as authority, is doctrinally flawed and creates conflict with long-standing caselaw on open account and account stated outside the context of credit card debt collection.

It remains to be seen.

CASES INVOLVING ACCOUNT STATED IN THE CREDIT CARD DEBT CONTEXT

CORPUS CHRISTI COURT OF APPEALS (ON TRANSFER FROM FORT WORTH)

[Marc] Core v. Citibank, N.A., No. 13-12-00648-CV (Tex.App.- Corpus Christi, Edinburg [13th Dist.], April 9, 2015, no pet h.) (Opinion by Justice Rodriguez)

EASTLAND COURT OF APPEALS (ON TRANSFER FROM FORT WORTH) 

[Rose] Core v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., now known as Citibank, N.A.,  No. 11-13-00040-CV (Tex.App.- Eastland [11th Dist.] February 27, 2015, motion for rehearing filed )(Op by Justice John M. Bailey)(case transferred from Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth)

Walker v. Citibank, N.A., No. 11-13-00042-CV, 2015 WL 1004395, at *3 (Tex.App.- Eastland [11th Dist.], Feb. 27, 2015) (Op. by retired Justice Terry McCall, sitting by assignment) (case transferred from the 2nd Court of Appeals) (concluding that “an account[-]stated cause of action is appropriate for a suit to collect credit card debt” and setting out the elements of an account-stated claim)

FORT WORTH COURT OF APPEALS

Morrison v. Citibank (S.D.) N.A., No. 02-07-00130-CV, 2008 WL 553284, at *1 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Feb. 28, 2008, no pet.) (mem. op.) (per curiam) (judgment in favor of Citibank on account stated theory reversed in suit involving ten credit card accounts).

DALLAS COURT OF APPEALS

DuLong v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., 261 S.W.3d 890, 893 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2008, no pet.)

Compton v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., 364 S.W.3d 415, 419–20 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2012, no pet.) (citing DuLong, 261 S.W.3d at 894)(follow-up case stating disagreement with Fort Worth court's opinion in Morrison).

Hays v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., No. 05-11-00187-CV, 2012 WL 929673 (Tex.App.-Dallas Mar. 16, 2012, no pet. h.) (mem. op.)

Owusu v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., No. 05-10-00175-CV, 2011 WL 2465475 (Tex.App.-Dallas June 22, 2011, no pet.) (mem. op.)

Moir v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., No. 05-09-00641-CV, 2010 WL 2574212 (Tex. App.-Dallas June 29, 2010, no pet.) (mem. op.)

AUSTIN COURT OF APPEALS

Singh v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., 03-10-00408-CV, 2011 WL 1103788 (Tex.App.-Austin Mar. 24, 2011, no pet.) (mem. op.)

Damron v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., No. 03-09-00438-CV, 2010 WL 3377777 (Tex.App.-Austin Aug. 25, 2010, pet. denied) (mem. op.)

SAN ANTONIO COURT OF APPEALS 

Rodriguez v. Citibank, N.A., No. 04-12-00777-CV, 2013 WL 4682194 (Tex. App.—San Antonio Aug. 30, 2013, no pet.) (mem. op.)

WACO COURT OF APPEALS 

McGrew v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., No. 10-07-00343-CV, 2009 WL 1693473 (Tex.App.-Waco 2009, no pet.) (mem. op.)

HOUSTON COURT OF APPEALS

Busch v. Hudson & Keyse, LLC, 312 S.W.3d 294, 299 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th
Dist.] 2010, no pet.)

EL PASO COURT OF APPEALS

Eaves v. Unifund CCR Partners, 301 S.W.3d 402 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2009, no pet.)

Docket Equalization by the Texas Supreme Court by Transferring Cases

TRANSFER OF CASES FROM ONE TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS TO ANOTHER 

The fourteen intermediate courts of appeals in Texas vary in size between 3 and 13, but do not receive appeals in exact proportion to their share of the total number of justices statewide, which is 80. As a result, some courts of appeals end up with more cases per member than others. To meliorate the disproportionality, and to even the case-load burden, the Texas Supreme Court transfers batches of cases from courts of appeals with an excess of cases to those that are less busy.

The Supreme Court does this several times a year with administrative orders called docket-equalization orders. See TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 73.001.

The cases that are transferred are not screened for the issues they raise, but are transferred based on date and filing sequence. The guiding rational is administrative convenience and efficiency in utilization of judicial resources.

The chart below shows the extent of disproportion, and the effect of equalization for Fiscal Year 2014. 

New Filings Per Justice including and excluding transfers  

STATUTORY AUTHORITY FOR TRANSFER OF APPEALS AMONG THE COAs

Texas Government Code §73.001 

SAMPLE DOCKET EQUALIZATION ORDER 

Link to the full-length document 

  
 CASELAW SNIPPETS ON TRANSFER OF CASES 

The Texas Supreme Court transferred this appeal from the Court of Appeals for the Fourth District of Texas to this Court pursuant to its docket equalization powers. See TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 73.001 (West 2013) ("The supreme court may order cases transferred from one court of appeals to another at any time that, in the opinion of the supreme court, there is good cause for the transfer."); Order Regarding Transfer of Cases From Courts of Appeals, Misc. Docket No. 14-9121, ¶ II (Tex. June 23, 2014).

--- 

The Supreme Court of Texas transferred this appeal from the Third Court of Appeals in Austin to this Court pursuant to its docket-equalization authority. See TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 73.001 (Vernon 2013) ("The supreme court may order cases transferred from one court of appeals to another at any time that, in the opinion of the supreme court, there is good cause for the transfer.").

IMPLICATIONS FOR APPLICATION OF COA-SPECIFIC CASELAW 

In transferred cases, the receiving court is supposed to follow the binding precedent from the appellate court from which the transferred case originated. TEX.R.APP.P. 41.3. This is significant because the courts of appeal do not always see eye to eye on legal issues, and are not bound to follow each other on legal issues that have not been resolved authoritatively by the court of last resort. A transfer case can put justices in the position of having to depart from thier own precedents to give effect to a prior precedent from a sister court. But that scenario is rare.

Originally appealed to the Twelfth Court of Appeals, this case was transferred to this Court by the Texas Supreme Court pursuant to its docket equalization efforts. See TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 73.001 (West 2013). We are unaware of any conflict between precedent of the Twelfth Court of Appeals and that of this Court on any relevant issue. See TEX. R. APP. P. 41.3.

RELATED TERMS: Docket equalization order, transfer of cases from one court of appeals to another, caseload balancing, transfer in and transfer out, appellate caseloads, number of appeals in each and appellate district, cases per judge.

QUESTION ADDRESSED BY THIS BLOG POST: 
Why do appeals get transferred to a different court of appeals?
Why does the Texas Supreme Court transfer cases from the court of appeal in which they were filed?
Which courts of appeals have cases transferred out and which courts receive them?