Ninety Days More Than a New York Minute
November 8, 2012The court issued a memorandum opinion clarifying the appellate timetable after the filing of a foreign judgment in a Texas court. Appellee received a judgment in a New York court and filed it in the Texas trial court on September 29, 2011. Appellant filed a notice of appeal on June 20, 2012. The court questioned whether the notice of appeal was untimely. In her jurisdictional brief, appellant argued that the deadlines for post-judgment motions set forth in Tex. R. Civ. P. 329b run from the date the judgment was signed in the New York court, and thus contended that she never had an opportunity to contest the foreign judgment because the deadlines to do so had expired before appellee filed the foreign judgment in the Texas court.
The court held that Rule 329b applies only to Texas judgments. Under Tex. R. App. P. 26.1(a)(1), the ninety day deadline for the appellant to filed her notice of appeal ran from the date that the appellee filed the foreign judgment in the Texas court. Thus, she had filed her notice of appeal more than five months past the deadline, and the court dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
