In re Johnson — Texas appeals court denied mandamus and temporary relief in SAPCR proceeding

Unreported / Non-Citable

Background

Andrew Bryce Johnson sought mandamus and temporary relief in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship filed by real party in interest Marian Antoinette Skinner. In the trial court, Johnson filed a plea to the jurisdiction and an alternative statutory motion to dismiss under Texas Family Code Section 153.432(c), as well as an alternative motion to transfer the case to Hardin County.

Before the trial court ruled on those motions, Johnson petitioned the court of appeals. The trial court had scheduled a September 10, 2026 hearing that would first address threshold matters—including jurisdiction, venue, standing, service, notice, and justiciability—and would proceed to temporary orders only if those prerequisites were satisfied. Johnson asked the appellate court to prevent consideration of temporary conservatorship and other merits issues and to require dismissal, an advance jurisdictional ruling, or an express transfer ruling.

The Court’s Holding

The Ninth Court of Appeals denied Johnson’s mandamus petition and his request for temporary relief. It held that Johnson’s jurisdictional and transfer arguments could and should first be heard, considered, and decided by the trial court in the exercise of its discretion, without preliminary instructions from the appellate court.

The court concluded that Johnson had not shown the order setting the two-phase hearing was arbitrary or unreasonable. Nor had he demonstrated that, at this stage of the proceeding, the benefits of immediate mandamus review outweighed its detriments.

Key Takeaways

• Mandamus was premature because the trial court had scheduled a hearing designed to address threshold issues before any temporary-orders merits hearing.
• The appellate court found no clear abuse of discretion in the trial court’s hearing order.
• The court denied both the petition for writ of mandamus and the requested stay or other temporary relief.

Why It Matters

The decision underscores that an appellate court ordinarily will not use mandamus to instruct a trial court how or when to decide jurisdictional and venue issues before the trial court has ruled, particularly when the court has already structured its hearing to resolve those matters first.

For SAPCR litigants, merely anticipating an adverse threshold ruling or a subsequent temporary-orders hearing does not establish entitlement to extraordinary appellate intervention.