Second Court of Appeals | Case Summaries

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of March 07, 2011

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

In re Ezukanma, No 02-09-00464-CV (March 9, 2011) (op. on reh'g) (Gardner, J., joined by Walker, J.; Livingston, C.J., dissents with opinion). [Note: Both opinions are at the same link in one document.]: Held: Petitions for writ of mandamus and habeas corpus conditionally granted where the trial court abused its discretion by finding petitioner in criminal contempt even though petitioner made the past due child support payments raised in a motion to enforce prior to the hearing on motion to enforce and by finding petitioner in criminal contempt for not making child support payments that were not raised in the motion to enforce. Further, petitioner did not waive his complaint about the contempt order by agreeing to the form of an order granting his motion for reconsideration because the agreed order only modified the manner in which petitioner would serve his contempt penalty in the event it was not invalidated.; Dissent: The majority incorrectly construes subsection (d) of family code section 157.162 to support its holding. That subsection was not affected by the legislature's addition of subsection (e); thus, subsection (e) should not be used to interpret the meaning of subsection (d). The dissent would hold that the only reasonable interpretation of section 157.162(d) is that at the time of the enforcement hearing, the contemnor must be current in all child support payments, including those accruing between the time the motion to enforce is filed and the hearing on the motion, to avoid criminal contempt for the past-due violations alleged in the motion to enforce.