A routine landlord-tenant dispute is not something we would ordinarily report, but we note this one out of the Dallas Court of Appeals because it appears to involve a county court at law’s blatant disregard of the law or an egregious misunderstanding of it. Either way, this case should never have showed up on the court of appeals’ doorstep in the first place.
SPCP August Owner, LLC d/b/a Eleven600 Apartments v. William Golnik, Macie Whitaker, and All Occupants (No. 05-23-00131-CV; February 14, 2024) arose from an eviction action. After Tenants failed to pay rent for several months running, Landlord filed a forcible detainer suit in the appropriate justice court, seeking possession, unpaid rent, attorney’s fees, and costs of court. After a bench trial, the court ruled in the Landlord’s favor and awarded possession, unpaid rent, interest, and costs. Tenants sought to appeal by filing a “Statement of Inability to Afford Court Costs or An Appeal Bond,” which Landlord did not contest. After the justice court approved the appeal, it was forwarded to the county clerk and assigned to the Dallas County Court at Law No. 1. Landlord once again filed its eviction suit, seeking the same relief. Without prior notice, however, the county court at law dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction. Landlord appealed.
The court of appeals reversed and remanded. Observing that the Landlord properly complied with the law in every respect, the court stated that “[w]e do not perceive anything in the record that would deprive the county court of jurisdiction of jurisdiction over the appeal from the justice court.” Since the county court’s order did not include a reason for the dismissal, the court of appeals could only guess that “the court believed the vacatur of the justice court judgment meant there was nothing to appeal, depriving the county court of jurisdiction.” The court of appeals may have been a bit generous here, for as pretty much everyone knows appeals of eviction cases are tried de novo in county courts. This has the effect of annulling the justice court judgment, which is why a landlord has to refile the suit as if no previous trial had taken place.
Is this a case of a county court not knowing Eviction Procedure 101 or simply ignoring it? There can be no conceivable excuse for this. In order to recover possession of its property (which tenants occupied without paying rent for at least six months) and recover a few thousand dollars in unpaid rent, the landlord ended up in the court of appeals even though it did everything exactly right. How much did that cost? Whatever it was, there is no mechanism for the landlord to recover it. Moreover, on remand, the case is right back where it started: in a county court that has already delayed it once and must now try it despite an obvious disinclination to do so. How long will that take? And at what additional cost? Surely there is a better way, but until then, we need to look to how we are educating and training courts like these on how to properly discharge their duties.
