the County of La Salle v. Joe Weber, in His Official Capacity as Executive Director of the Texas Department of Transportation The Texas Department of Transportation Ted Houghton, in His Official Capacity as Chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission
ACCEPTED
03-14-00501-CV
4934603
THIRD COURT OF APPEALS
AUSTIN, TEXAS
4/17/2015 1:38:56 PM
JEFFREY D. KYLE
CLERK
No. 03-14-00501-CV
FILED IN
In the 3rd COURT OF APPEALS
Third Court of Appeals AUSTIN, TEXAS
4/17/2015 1:38:56 PM
JEFFREY D. KYLE
at Austin Clerk
COUNTY OF LA SALLE,
Appellant,
v.
JOE WEBER, in his official capacity as Executive Director
of the Texas Department of Transportation;
THE TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION;
TED HOUGHTON, in his official capacity as Chairman of
the Texas Transportation Commission; and
JEFF AUSTIN III, JEFF MOSELEY, FRED UNDERWOOD, and
VICTOR VANDERGRIFF, in their official capacities as
Commissioners of the Texas Transportation Commission,
Appellees.
On Appeal from the 353rd District Court
of Travis County, Texas
U NOPPOSED M OTION TO T RANSMIT
P HYSICAL C OPY OF O NE E XHIBIT
This motion requests an order under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure
34.6(g)(2) authorizing the court reporter to transmit a physical copy of the
State’s first trial exhibit (DX1). The motion is unopposed.
I.
This motion concerns the original exhibit marked as State Exhibit 1, an
optical disc introduced at the evidentiary hearing below. The State
Defendants do not oppose the original being transmitted to the Court.
II.
The disc contains the applications submitted by 191 Texas counties to
participate in the Transportation Infrastructure Fund (TIF) grant program,
along with some related correspondence. The State Defendants organized
these documents on the disc for ready reference. They are in individual
files that have been given descriptive names and organized into folders
named by county, with individual pages assigned a Bates number.
III.
Translating this optical disc to an electronic record suitable for
electronic transmission would make the exhibit less useful and significantly
more cumbersome for the Court and the parties. Printed, the 841
documents on this disc would consume more than 10,700 pages. As PDFs,
they consume more than 2.9 gigabytes. Without significant compression,
this single exhibit could add 30 volumes to the record record. Even with file
compression, it would likely add more than a dozen volumes.
The result would also be less useful. Many of these 841 documents
were scanned by the counties who submitted them, and thus are of varying
sizes and formats. Some counties submitted road condition reports that
included color photographs, color maps, and detailed diagrams that would
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be degraded by file compression or by being reduced to a smaller page size.
By contrast, accepting the optical disc preserves these documents’ fidelity.
IV.
Accepting this disc in its original form will not impede the Court’s
review. When witnesses were asked about specific counties, a copy of the
relevant document was marked, admitted separately, and included in the
reporter’s record. Those documents already form the bulk of the electronic
record, filling nearly five of its volumes. See 3RR, 4RR, 5RR, 6RR,
7RR1-371. The parties’ briefs have referred to those separately marked
documents, not specific pages on the optical disc.
V.
The Court should order transmittal of this original optical disc so that
the record is complete.
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PRAYER
Under Rule 34.6(g)(2), the Court should request that the court
reporter send the original exhibit marked as State Exhibit 1 (DX1).
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Don Cruse
_____________________
Don Cruse
SBN 24040744
LAW OFFICE OF DON CRUSE
1108 Lavaca St. #110-436
Austin, Texas 78701
(512) 853-9100
(512) 870-9002 fax
don.cruse@texasappellate.com
Donato D. Ramos
Bar No. 16508000
mrodriguez@ddrlex.com
Donato D. Ramos, Jr.
Bar No. 24041744
donatoramosjr@ddrlex.com
LAW OFFICES OF DONATO
RAMOS, PLLC
Texas Community Bank Building
Suite 350
6721 McPherson Road (78041)
Laredo, Texas 78045
(956) 722-9909
(956) 727-5884 fax
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Certificate of Service
I certify that on April 17, 2015, this Unopposed Motion to
Transmit Physical Copy of One Exhibit was served on counsel under
Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.5(b):
Kristofer S. Monson
Assistant Solicitor General
Susan Desmarais Bonnen
Assistant Attorney General
Transportation Division
P.O. Box 12548
Austin, Texas 78711-2548
kristofer.monson@texasattorneygeneral.gov
susan.bonnen@texasattorneygeneral.gov
COUNSEL FOR APPELLEES
/s/ Don Cruse
____________________
Don Cruse
Certificate of Conference
I conferred with Kris Monson and Susan Bonnen, who told
confirmed that this motion is not opposed.
/s/ Don Cruse
____________________
Don Cruse
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