Opinion issued May21, 2009
In The
Court of Appeals
For The
First District of Texas
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NO. 01-07-00788-CV
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MARY ANN DeMARS AND ROBERT DeMARS, Appellants
V.
THOMAS A. LAUCIUS, ALTHEA M. BAILEY, DIANA HSIUNG A/K/A DIANA “CHUANG-LING” HSIUNG, EDDIE KRENEK, HSIUNG AND ASSOCIATES, AND LAW OFFICE OF EDDIE KRENEK, CHOU, ASSIST-2-SELL, INC., Appellees
On Appeal from the 280th District Court
Harris County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. 2006-80281
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appellants, Mary Ann DeMars and Robert DeMars, sued appellees asserting multiple causes of action, including fraud, deceptive trade practices, legal malpractice, breach of contract, and usury. We dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
Factual Background
On April 27, 2007, the trial court dismissed appellants’ case for want of prosecution. The trial court’s docket sheet reflects that on May 11, 2007, the trial court held a hearing on the record, considered evidence on appellee’s, Laucius’s, motion to declare appellants vexatious litigants and orally granted it. On May 29, 2007, appellants filed a motion for new trial. On September 12, 2007, appellants filed their notice of appeal, stating that they were appealing from “the Final Judgment entered on the 27th day of April, 2007.”
On July 7, 2008, the district clerk filed the clerk’s record with this Court. The Clerk of this Court notified appellants that it appeared that this Court did not have jurisdiction of the appeal. The Clerk noted that the judgment of which appellants complained was signed April 27, 2007, that appellants had filed a motion for new trial, extending the deadline to file the notice of appeal to July 26, 2007. See Tex. R. App. P. 26.1(a)(1). The Clerk further noted that appellants’ notice of appeal was filed September 12, 2009, well past the July 26, 2007 deadline. The Clerk advised appellants that their appeal was subject to dismissal for want of jurisdiction unless by July 21, 2008, they filed a written response, providing a meritorious explanation showing that they timely filed their notice of appeal.
In their July 22, 2008 response, appellants stated that the district court clerk had told them that the trial court was planning to modify its final judgment to reflect its May 11, 2007 order declaring them vexatious litigants. Appellants further state that a reporter’s record of the hearing reflects that the trial court was going to revise the final judgment. Appellants assert that by the beginning of September they had not received the revised judgment and learned that the trial court was not going to sign Laucius’s order declaring them vexatious litigants. In their response, appellants requested additional time, until after the reporter’s record was filed to be able to refer to it in making a complete response to the Clerk’s notice regarding this Court’s apparent lack of jurisdiction.
A Justice of this Court granted the motion, in part, extending appellants’ response time to August 5, 2008 and ordering that any further response by appellants must be filed with this Court by August 5, 2008. On August 6, 2008, appellants filed a letter with this Court referring to an affidavit of indigence they had filed with this Court and stated that they had assumed that this Court would order the court reporter to produce a reporter’s record. Appellants stated that they were filing a motion to compel the court reporter to provide the reporter’s record. Appellants made no further response to the Clerk’s notice regarding jurisdiction. No reporter’s record has been filed.
Analysis
If any party timely files a motion for new trial, the time for filing a notice of appeal is extended from 30 days to 90 days. Tex. R. App. P. 26.1(a)(1). Here the trial court signed the judgment appealed from on April 27, 200, making the deadline to file the notice of appeal July 26, 2007. Appellants did not file their notice of appeal until September 12, 2007, 48 days after the deadline to file it. In their response concerning jurisdiction, appellants do not explicitly say so, but they insinuate that the reason they did not timely file their notice of appeal is because they expected the trial court to modify its April 27, 2007 dismissal order to reflect a granting of Lauscius’s motion to declare appellants to be vexatious litigants. Appellants have cited no legal authority that an expectation that a trial court would modify its judgment extends the time to file a notice of appeal. They have not otherwise shown that they timely filed their appeal.
Conclusion
We dismiss appellants’ appeal for want of jurisdiction. See Tex. R. App. P. 26.1(a)(1).
PER CURIAM
Panel consists of Justices Keyes, Hanks, and Bland.