In the
Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
at Fort Worth
___________________________
No. 02-21-00186-CV
___________________________
NATIONAL SPECIALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, INC., Appellant
V.
JASON STARR, Appellee
On Appeal from the 352nd District Court
Tarrant County, Texas
Trial Court No. 352-325364-21
Before Kerr, Birdwell, and Bassel, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Justice Kerr
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appellee Jason Starr filed an “Amended Notice of Filing of Foreign Judgment”
in Texas state court to enforce a $2.8 million default judgment that he obtained
against appellant National Specialty Insurance Company, Inc. in Iowa. See generally
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. §§ 35.001–.008 (“Enforcement of Judgments of
Other States”). In response, NSIC filed “National Specialty Insurance Company,
Inc.’s Notice of Appeal and/or Stay of Execution Pursuant to Tex. Civ. Prac. &
Rem[.] Code § 35.006,” asking the Texas court to stay the enforcement of the
judgment here while NSIC appeals the Iowa judgment there. See id. § 35.006. The
trial-court clerk forwarded NSIC’s notice to us, and we filed it as a notice of appeal.
See Tex. R. App. P. 25.1(a), (f).
We notified NSIC of our concern that we lacked jurisdiction over this appeal
because it appeared that there was no final judgment or appealable order and that
NSIC’s notice of appeal was thus premature. See Tex. R. App. P. 26.1(a), 27.1(a). We
gave NSIC ten days to provide us with a signed copy of the order that it wants to
appeal, see Tex. R. App. P. 44.3, 44.4(a)(2), and warned NSIC that if it failed to do so,
we would dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction, see Tex. R. App. P. 42.3(a),
43.2(f).
2
NSIC filed a response admitting that there is no final judgment or appealable
order and conceding that we thus lack jurisdiction over this appeal.1 We agree with
NSIC and thus dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction. See Tex. R. App. P. 42.3(a),
43.2(f); see also Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191, 195 (Tex. 2001) (explaining
that an appellate court has jurisdiction over appeals from final judgments and from
certain interlocutory orders made appealable by statute).
/s/ Elizabeth Kerr
Elizabeth Kerr
Justice
Delivered: July 15, 2021
In its response, NSIC apologetically admits that “the confusion over the
1
Court’s jurisdiction arises from an unartfully titled pleading [it] filed in the trial court,”
in which it intended to invoke Section 35.006’s stay procedure, and surmises that the
notice-of-appeal language in the pleading’s title “appears to have caused the notice to
be sent to this Court.” See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 35.006.
3