The Texas Supreme Court addressed when – following appeal and remand – an order or judgment of the trial court is “final” for purposes of appellate court jurisdiction in McFadin, III v. Broadway Coffeehouse, No. 16-0560, 2018 LEXIS 99 (Tex. Feb. 2, 2018).

Coffeehouse sued various parties, including McFadin, for a declaration as to ownership and partition of certain commercial property. Coffeehouse did not seek any actual damages. Coffeehouse prevailed and recovered trial and appellate attorneys’ fees. McFadin appealed and posted a supersedeas bond.

The trial court set the amount of supersedeas bond at $170,237.76, an amount equal to the property’s rental value for eighteen months. See Tex. R. App. P. 24.2(2) (stating that when the judgment is for the recovery of an interest in real property, the amount of security set by the trial court must be at least the value of the property’s rent or revenue). The court of appeals affirmed the judgment on the merits and the Supreme Court denied McFadin’s petition for review.

The trial court then ordered McFadin and his surety to pay the full amount of the bond to Coffeehouse.  McFadin appealed because there was no evidence of any loss or damage caused by the suspension of the underlying judgment pending appeal.

The court of appeals dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction concluding that the trial court’s order was an enforcement order, and that in the absence of new or additional relief the order was not a “final” order from which an appeal may be taken.

The Texas Supreme Court granted review. (The Court has jurisdiction to determine whether a lower court had jurisdiction, even if the order appealed from is ultimately determined to have been interlocutory.)

The Supreme Court then determined that the trial court had jurisdiction following remand to issue an order concerning the supersedeas bond and otherwise carry out the court of appeals’ mandate.

The Court next addressed whether the court of appeals had jurisdiction of an appeal from the trial court’s order, noting that, unless specifically authorized by statute, Texas appellate courts have jurisdiction to review only final judgments.

The Court noted that if a judgment disposes of every issue in a case, it does not lack finality merely because it recites that it is partial, refers only to some of the parties or claims, or lacks “Mother Hubbard” (finality) language. On the other hand, when a final judgment exists, a subsequent order that merely enforces the judgment is not a final judgment subject to appeal.

Here, the original judgment of the trial court did not provide for payment of the supersedeas bond amount to Coffeehouse. So the subsequent order, which did provide for that payment, made McFadin liable for monetary obligations that he was not liable for under the judgment. Therefore, it was appealable and the court of appeals had jurisdiction to consider McFadin’s appeal on the merits.