COURT OF APPEALS
SECOND DISTRICT OF TEXAS
FORT WORTH
NO. 02-15-00035-CV
SCARLETTE RAFFERTY ELLIOTT APPELLANTS
AND SEAN PAUL RAFFERTY
V.
BIRCHMAN BAPTIST CHURCH APPELLEE
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FROM COUNTY COURT AT LAW NO. 2 OF DENTON COUNTY
TRIAL COURT NO. CV-2013-02633
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MEMORANDUM OPINION 1
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On April 14, 2015, we abated this appeal to permit the trial court to clarify
whether it intended its January 23, 2015 “Final Order” to be a final, appealable
judgment. We stated that if we did not receive a supplemental clerk’s record
clarifying the trial court’s intention on or before May 14, 2015, we would presume
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See Tex. R. App. P. 47.4.
that the trial court intended its order to be a nonappealable, interlocutory order
and dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
We have not received a supplemental clerk’s record or any other
communication indicating the trial court intended its order to be a final,
appealable judgment. Instead, we have received a copy of a conditional order of
the trial court seeking the 431st District Court’s approval to transfer the
underlying case to the 431st District Court, in which a second suit regarding the
same subject matter is pending. In that conditional order, the trial court indicates
that it would waste judicial resources to have the same subject matter pending in
two different courts and that the trial court did not believe it had jurisdiction over
“all the matters at issue.” [Emphasis added.] The trial court’s conditional order
clarifies that it did not intend its January 23, 2015 Final Order to be a final,
appealable order.
Accordingly, we dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction. See Farm
Bureau Cnty. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Rogers, 455 S.W.3d 161, 163–64 (Tex. 2015);
Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191, 205–06 (Tex. 2001).
/s/ Terrie Livingston
TERRIE LIVINGSTON
CHIEF JUSTICE
PANEL: LIVINGSTON, C.J.; DAUPHINOT and GARDNER, JJ.
DELIVERED: June 11, 2015
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