Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
The trial court signed a final foreclosure judgment against Linda Ann Lewis on February 12, 2025, after she had been served by publication. Lewis did not appeal that judgment. On June 10, 2025, she filed a motion to stay the foreclosure and a motion to vacate the judgment, along with requests for a temporary restraining order and other injunctive relief.
Lewis later filed several additional motions seeking to set aside the judgment and made three attempts to recuse the trial judge. After a June 2026 hearing, the trial court entered “Findings Related to Plenary Powers,” concluding that its plenary power had expired and that it lacked authority to rule on Lewis’s motions or issue further orders. Lewis appealed that July 22, 2026 order.
The Court’s Holding
The Tenth Court of Appeals held that the trial court’s plenary power expired in September 2025. Because Lewis was served by publication, her June 10, 2025 post-judgment filing triggered the applicable timetable under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 306a(7). Applying Rule 329b(c) and (e), the appellate court calculated that the trial court’s plenary power extended for 105 days after that filing and expired on September 23, 2025.
The trial court therefore lacked jurisdiction to rule on Lewis’s later motions. To the extent it retained authority to hold the June 2026 hearing, its subsequent determination that it lacked plenary power was not an independently appealable order. The court dismissed Lewis’s appeal for want of jurisdiction under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 42.3(a).
Key Takeaways
- For a party served by publication, Rule 306a(7) may calculate post-judgment deadlines from the filing of a qualifying motion submitted more than 30 days after judgment.
- A timely post-judgment motion does not extend a Texas trial court’s plenary power indefinitely; here, plenary power expired 105 days after the June 10, 2025 filing.
- A trial court’s later determination that it lacks plenary power is not itself an independently appealable order.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that litigants challenging a judgment must act within the governing post-judgment and appellate deadlines, even when service was by publication. Once the trial court’s plenary power expires, repeated motions to vacate generally cannot revive its jurisdiction.
It also illustrates a separate appellate-jurisdiction limit: an order merely recognizing that the trial court no longer has authority to act does not create a new opportunity to appeal the underlying judgment.