Texas Third Court of Appeals

The Texas Third Court of Appeals sits in Austin and hears appeals from trial courts spread across a central Texas district. It is one of fourteen intermediate appellate courts in the state, and each is tied to a geographic district set by statute. Texas Government Code section 22.201 fixes those districts and names the counties assigned to each. When a party loses in a district court or a county court inside this region, the Court of Appeals is normally the first place to test the outcome. You do not ask this court to retry your case. You ask it to decide whether the trial court followed the law and whether the evidence supported the result.

Picture the state judiciary as three tiers. Trial courts sit at the base, where witnesses testify, exhibits come in, and a judge or jury enters judgment. The courts of appeals sit in the middle, and the Third Court of Appeals is one of these fourteen. Two high courts sit at the top. The Texas Supreme Court handles civil and juvenile matters, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals handles criminal ones. So the Court of Appeals reviews what trial judges and juries did, and one of the two high courts may later review what the Court of Appeals decided. That split at the top is unusual. Most states keep a single supreme court, while Texas divides civil and criminal review into separate hands.

A common misunderstanding trips up clients early. They expect the Court of Appeals to hear new testimony or accept fresh evidence. It does neither. The court works from the paper and electronic record made in the trial court, plus the written briefs and, sometimes, a short oral argument. No new witnesses appear. No new exhibits come in. If a fact was never developed below, the Court of Appeals will not develop it now. This is why trial lawyers guard the record so carefully, because the court can only correct what the record already shows.

Which trial courts feed this Court of Appeals? Civil and criminal judgments from the district courts in its counties, along with rulings from the county courts at law and the statutory probate courts. Family law decrees, business disputes, personal injury verdicts, and challenges to state agency orders all travel this path. Because the seat of state government is in Austin, a large part of the administrative and regulatory work in Texas lands on this docket, including cases that reach the trial courts under the Administrative Procedure Act. That gives the Court of Appeals a steady diet of matters involving state agencies, licensing boards, and constitutional questions that touch the whole state.

The district covers a broad slice of central Texas. Travis County anchors it, and the surrounding and outlying counties reach north and west from there. A judgment entered in a small rural county in this district and a judgment entered in downtown Austin both come to the same Court of Appeals. The justices do not sit in each county. Parties file here, brief here, and, when argument is granted, appear in Austin. That central location matters for planning travel, deadlines, and local counsel.

Who reviews the Court of Appeals? For a civil case, a party unhappy with the result may file a petition for review in the Texas Supreme Court. For a criminal case, the route runs to the Court of Criminal Appeals through a petition for discretionary review. Neither high court has to take the case. Both choose the matters they hear, much like the United States Supreme Court chooses its docket through certiorari. When the high court declines, the decision of the Court of Appeals becomes the last word on that dispute.

The split at the top changes strategy in a real way. A civil litigant who loses at the Court of Appeals petitions the Texas Supreme Court, a court that grants review sparingly and tends to take cases with statewide importance or conflicts among the districts. A criminal litigant petitions the Court of Criminal Appeals on the same discretionary basis. Because neither high court is obliged to take the case, counsel should treat the Court of Appeals briefing as the place to win the case, since the higher court may never engage. Framing an issue as one the Supreme Court might care about is smart, but it does not lower the burden of persuading the Court of Appeals first.

That last point explains why most appeals end at this level. Discretionary review is the norm at the top, so the great majority of cases that reach the Court of Appeals receive their final answer here rather than from a high court. For the client, this reframes the stakes. The brief you file here may be the last full argument any court ever reads on your case. Treat the intermediate appeal as the main event, because for most litigants it is.

The justices who make these decisions are elected. Texas voters in the district choose the members of the Court of Appeals to six year terms, and the governor may appoint to fill a vacancy until the next election. A chief justice leads the court. Cases are normally heard by panels of three justices rather than by the full bench, a structure common to the Texas intermediate courts under Texas Government Code section 22.222. On rare occasions the court may sit en banc to resolve a conflict among its own panels. Knowing that three justices, and not the whole bench, will likely decide your appeal shapes how you frame the record and the argument.

Understanding where the Court of Appeals fits is the first step. The next is knowing exactly which judgments and orders it may review, and when you have a right to appeal as opposed to needing permission.

The Court of Appeals draws its power from statute, and the boundaries are firm. Texas Government Code section 22.220 gives the court appellate jurisdiction over civil cases within its district when the amount in controversy or the judgment exceeds $250, not counting interest and costs. That dollar floor is low and rarely a problem in practice. What matters far more is whether the thing you want to appeal is the kind of order the Court of Appeals may hear at all. Most of the time, the answer turns on finality.

Finality is the usual trigger. You appeal from a final judgment, one that disposes of every party and every claim in the case. The Texas Supreme Court explained the test in Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191 (Tex. 2001), holding that a judgment is final if it actually disposes of all claims or clearly states that it does. If the trial court has left a claim or a party hanging, the order usually is not final, and the Court of Appeals will dismiss an early appeal for want of jurisdiction. Clients hate this outcome. A dismissal on finality grounds sends everyone back to the trial court to clean up loose ends before the Court of Appeals can look at the merits, and a partial summary judgment without a severance is a frequent trap.

Texas allows a set of exceptions where you may appeal before final judgment. These interlocutory appeals are creatures of statute, and the main list lives in Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 51.014(a). It permits immediate appeal of orders such as those granting or denying a temporary injunction, certifying or refusing to certify a class, and granting or denying a plea to the jurisdiction filed by a governmental unit. Because these appeals of right exist only where the statute says so, the Court of Appeals reads the list narrowly. If your order is not on it, you generally wait for final judgment.

A second route runs through permission. Under section 51.014(d), a trial court may allow an appeal from an otherwise unappealable interlocutory order when the order turns on a controlling question of law and an immediate appeal may advance the end of the litigation. The trial court signs off first, then the Court of Appeals decides whether to accept the permissive appeal. Acceptance is not automatic. The court may decline, and if it does, the case continues below until a final judgment opens the ordinary door. This permission track is narrow, yet it can save years when a single legal ruling controls the whole dispute.

Perfecting the appeal is its own jurisdictional step. Filing a timely notice of appeal is what brings the case within the power of the Court of Appeals. Miss the deadline, and the court loses authority to hear the matter no matter how strong your issues are. The notice is short and simple, though it is the hinge on which everything turns. File it with the trial court clerk, identify the judgment, and state that you are appealing to the Court of Appeals. Everything else, the record and the briefs, follows from that one timely filing.

Criminal jurisdiction follows a different track. A defendant convicted in a district or county court within the district may appeal to the Court of Appeals, and the state's ability to appeal is limited by statute. Rule 25.2 of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure governs how a criminal appeal begins and restricts appeals after a plea bargain. When a defendant pleads guilty under a bargain the trial court follows, the right to appeal is narrow, often confined to matters raised by written motion before trial or issues the trial court gives permission to raise. The Court of Appeals checks that certification at the outset of every criminal appeal.

Because Austin is the seat of state government, administrative and regulatory appeals fill a large part of this docket. Challenges to agency orders reach the trial courts under the Administrative Procedure Act in Texas Government Code chapter 2001, and from there they climb to the Court of Appeals. Utility rates, professional licensing, environmental permits, and disputes with state agencies all appear here more often than they do in other districts. That concentration gives the Court of Appeals a heavy diet of public law questions that ripple across Texas.

Private disputes round out the work. Family law decrees, probate and guardianship rulings, real property fights, contract and business cases, personal injury verdicts, and employment claims all reach the court by ordinary appeal. Some arrive as original proceedings rather than appeals. A party who cannot wait for final judgment may ask the Court of Appeals for a writ of mandamus, which directs a trial judge to correct a clear abuse of discretion when no adequate appeal exists. Mandamus is demanding and rarely granted, yet it is the tool for the odd case where waiting would cause real harm. The court also hears certain habeas matters and other original writs defined by statute and rule.

Keep the state focus in mind. This is a Texas court applying Texas procedure, not a federal circuit. The deadlines come from the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, the jurisdiction comes from the Texas Government Code and the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and review runs to the Texas high courts. A federal case from the same courthouse follows a wholly separate path. When counsel cite authority to this court, they lean on Texas statutes and Texas decisions, and federal law enters only where a federal question is genuinely at stake.

Sorting appeal of right from permission, and final judgments from interlocutory orders, tells you whether you may appeal. It does not tell you how. The mechanics of getting an appeal filed, briefed, and argued come next, and the deadlines start running the moment the trial court signs its judgment.

Deadlines drive everything in an appeal, and the clock starts at the judgment. In a civil case, Rule 26.1 of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure gives you thirty days after the trial court signs the judgment to file a notice of appeal. That window stretches to ninety days if any party timely files a motion for new trial, a motion to modify the judgment, a motion to reinstate, or a request for findings of fact and conclusions of law. Criminal deadlines sit in Rule 26.2, which sets thirty days ordinarily and ninety days when the defendant timely moves for a new trial. Miss the date and the Court of Appeals cannot help you, so counsel calendars these dates before anything else. A short grace period exists under Rule 26.3, which allows a late notice within fifteen days if you also move to extend and explain the delay, but relying on it is a mistake.

The notice of appeal is filed with the trial court clerk, not with the Court of Appeals. It is a plain document. It names the party appealing, identifies the judgment or order, and states the desire to appeal. Once it is on file, the clerk sends the case up and the appellate clock takes over. A short docketing statement follows and gives the Court of Appeals basic information about the parties, counsel, and the case. None of these opening papers argues the merits. They exist to open the file and start the record moving.

Everything hinges on the record. It arrives in two parts. The clerk's record holds the filed papers, the pleadings, motions, orders, and the judgment. The reporter's record holds the transcript of what was said in the courtroom, along with the exhibits. Rules 34 and 35 govern what goes in and when it is due. The appellant must request the reporter's record and pay for it, or establish indigence. If the reporter's record never arrives, the Court of Appeals will often presume the missing evidence supported the trial court's ruling, which usually sinks the appeal. Building a complete record is the appellant's job, and the Court of Appeals decides the case on that record alone.

Briefing is where the appeal is won or lost. Rule 38 sets the form and content of the briefs, and Rule 38.6 sets the schedule. The appellant's brief is generally due thirty days after the record is complete. The appellee's brief follows, and the appellant may file a short reply. A good brief states the issues plainly, tells the court what standard of review applies, and ties every argument to a specific place in the record. The justices of the appellate bench read the briefs before argument, and many appeals are decided on the briefs without any argument at all. Sloppy record citations and unpreserved complaints are the fastest way to lose the court's attention.

Most cases are heard by a panel of three justices. Oral argument is not guaranteed. Rule 39 lets a party request it, and the judges decides whether argument would help. When argument is granted, each side gets a limited time to speak, and the justices interrupt with questions that often reveal how they see the case. When argument is denied, the panel decides on the written record and briefs. Either way, three justices confer and one writes the opinion. The panel issues its decision as a signed opinion or a shorter memorandum opinion, and the losing side may ask for rehearing or, in the right case, for en banc reconsideration by the full court.

The standard of review controls how much freedom the court has. Legal questions get fresh eyes. This court reviews pure questions of law de novo and gives no deference to the trial judge's conclusion. Factual matters are different. On a legal sufficiency challenge, the court asks whether the evidence would let a reasonable factfinder reach the verdict, the approach the Texas Supreme Court set out in City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802 (Tex. 2005). On a factual sufficiency challenge, the court weighs all the evidence and may set aside a finding only if it is so against the great weight of the evidence as to be clearly wrong, a review shaped by Pool v. Ford Motor Co., 715 S.W.2d 629 (Tex. 1986). Many discretionary calls, from evidentiary rulings to sanctions, are reviewed only for abuse of discretion.

Criminal review has its own measure. When a defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, the court uses the standard from Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979), viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and asking whether a rational jury could have found the elements beyond a reasonable doubt. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals adopted that single standard for evidentiary sufficiency in Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). Under any of these standards, the appellate bench gives real weight to what the jury decided.

Preservation shapes what the court will even consider. As a rule, the judges will not reverse on a complaint the party never raised in the trial court. Rule 33.1 requires a timely objection, request, or motion, and a ruling, before an issue is ripe for appeal. This catches clients off guard. A ruling that felt plainly wrong at trial can be beyond reach if no one objected on the record. The panel looks first for that preserved complaint, then for whether any error probably caused the wrong judgment, since harmless error will not overturn a result.

What can the court actually do with a verdict? It can affirm, leaving the judgment intact. It can reverse and render, entering the judgment the trial court should have entered when the law compels one result. It can reverse and remand for a new trial when the error requires the facts to be tried again. It can modify a judgment to correct a discrete error, such as a miscalculated award. What this court cannot do is reweigh witness credibility or substitute its own view of disputed facts for the jury's. It corrects legal error and guards the bounds of the evidence. It does not sit as a second jury. That limit is the thing a client should carry into an appeal before the court.

A decision from the Court of Appeals lands as a written opinion, and the type of opinion shapes what a client does next. Under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 47, a panel issues either a signed opinion or a memorandum opinion. The memorandum form resolves a case without long discussion when the governing law is settled and the outcome follows from it. A signed opinion runs longer and often addresses a question that recurs across cases. Both dispose of the appeal with equal effect. The gap between them is depth rather than authority. A client should read the opinion with counsel, because the exact holding, and its limits, control what any later court will do.

Published opinions of the Court of Appeals carry precedential weight for the future. A later panel of the same court follows an earlier published holding unless the full court reconsiders the point en banc. Trial judges inside the district read those opinions as binding law and apply them to new disputes. The Third Court sits in Austin and covers a broad band of Central Texas counties, so a ruling from the Court of Appeals here can guide litigation well past the parties in the room. Clients sometimes forget that their own appeal may make law that binds strangers for years.

Finality does not arrive the instant the opinion issues. A party who wants the same panel to look again files a motion for rehearing under Rule 49.1, generally within fifteen days after the judgment. The motion is narrow by design. It points to a fact the panel misread or a rule it misapplied, and it avoids simply repeating the brief that already lost. Panels of the Court of Appeals rarely change results on rehearing. Still, the motion preserves arguments and, in close cases, sharpens the reasoning a higher court will later read. Filing it can also affect the deadlines for seeking review, which is a practical reason to weigh it.

En banc reconsideration is the next lever, and a rare one. Under Rule 49.7, a party may ask all the justices of the appellate bench to sit together and reconsider a panel decision. The Third Court is a six-justice court, so an en banc sitting gathers the whole bench rather than a panel of three. Courts reserve en banc review for conflicts within their own precedent or questions of unusual importance to the district. A client should treat it as an exception, not a routine step after a loss.

Beyond the judges, the paths onward narrow sharply, and they split by the kind of case. In a civil matter, the losing side may file a petition for review asking the Supreme Court of Texas to take the case. Rule 53 governs that petition, and the deadline runs forty-five days from the panel judgment or the order on rehearing. Review is discretionary. The Supreme Court grants a modest share of petitions, usually where courts of appeals across the state disagree or a legal question reaches beyond the parties. A strong petition frames a clean issue of law rather than a plea to reweigh evidence.

Criminal appeals follow a separate road. After this court rules, a defendant or the State may seek a petition for discretionary review in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals under Rule 68. That court, not the Supreme Court of Texas, holds final say on criminal matters in the state's two high court system. The petition explains why the question deserves the higher court's attention, and, as with civil review, most petitions are refused without a full hearing.

A federal question opens one more door, and only a thin one. If a case decided in the state courts turns on the United States Constitution or a federal statute, a party may petition the Supreme Court of the United States for certiorari under 28 U.S.C. 1257 after the state's highest court finishes with the case. Pure questions of Texas law do not qualify. Certiorari is granted in a small fraction of filings, so this route is realistic in only a handful of disputes each term.

When the process ends, the Court of Appeals issues its mandate under Rule 18, the order that returns the case to the trial court for enforcement. The mandate is what lets a winning party collect a judgment or begin a new trial. Until it issues, the trial court usually cannot act on the appellate ruling. A client watching for closure should ask counsel when the mandate is expected, because that date, not the opinion date, marks the practical end of the appeal.

Time is part of the picture. The full arc before the appellate bench, from the notice of appeal to the mandate, often runs a year or more. Extensions of time, the length of the record, and the court's own calendar all stretch that timeline. A client should plan for patience rather than a quick answer.

Choosing whether to press on takes candor about odds and cost. Each further step adds briefing, filing fees, and months of delay. Directory listings can help a client compare lawyers who handle high court petitions, and this directory labels paid placement so a plan tier never passes for merit. The decision to seek review should rest on a genuine legal question rather than the sting of losing.

Section 1 placed the Court of Appeals as an intermediate court sitting in Austin, one level above the trial courts and below the two high courts of Texas. That position shapes who a client should hire. Any lawyer licensed and in good standing with the State Bar of Texas may file a brief and appear before the Court of Appeals. Texas keeps no separate appellate bar, and no extra admission is needed to stand up for argument at the Court of Appeals. The license, though, tells a client little about whether the lawyer fits the work.

Appellate practice runs on different muscles than trial work. A trial lawyer works in front of the jury and reads witnesses in real time. An appellate lawyer works from a closed record, writes for a panel of three justices, and argues law more than emotion. Some lawyers do both well. Many do one far better than the other. Before the Court of Appeals, the quality of the brief usually matters more than anything said aloud, because the justices read closely and often decide from the page.

One useful signal is board certification. The Texas Board of Legal Specialization certifies lawyers in Civil Appellate Law, a credential that requires substantial appellate experience and passing a demanding examination. Certification is not required to practice before the judges, and plenty of skilled appellate lawyers are not certified. Still, it marks a lawyer who has committed to the field. For a criminal appeal, ask instead about the lawyer's record in the courts of appeals and the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Ask concrete questions when you interview counsel. How many briefs has the lawyer filed in the panel, and in which districts? Has the lawyer argued before the Third Court in Austin, and does the lawyer know its panels and tendencies? Which appeals ended in a signed opinion, and may you read one? A lawyer who handles appeals regularly will answer without hesitation and can hand you writing samples. Standards of review are the heart of the craft, so ask the lawyer to explain, in plain terms, how this court will review the particular error in your case.

Fees for an appeal usually follow one of a few shapes. Some lawyers charge by the hour. Others quote a flat fee for the briefing, sometimes with a separate fee for oral argument if the Court of Appeals grants it. A retainer is common at the start, drawn down as the work proceeds. Contingency arrangements are uncommon on appeal, since the fee does not turn on collecting a judgment. Get the arrangement in writing, and ask what is included. Briefing, the reply brief, oral argument, and any motion for rehearing are separate tasks, and a clear engagement letter says which ones the fee covers.

Beyond the lawyer's fee sit the costs of the appeal itself. The clerk's record and the reporter's record carry charges set by the trial court clerk and the court reporter, and they can be significant in a long trial. Filing fees apply at the appellate bench. If a client wants to stop enforcement of a money judgment during the appeal, a supersedeas bond may be required, and its amount is set by statute and rule. Ask counsel to estimate these numbers early, because they land whether or not the appeal succeeds.

Verifying a lawyer's standing is where this directory helps. Where a firm has earned verification, its listing shows dated, editor-reviewed checks, and each check appears with its name, a short description, a status, and the date it was last confirmed. A client can see whether a lawyer's State Bar of Texas standing was verified, and when, rather than trusting a claim on a website. Because the checks are dated, a client knows how fresh the confirmation is. This directory also labels paid placement, so the order of listings never poses as a ranking of skill before the judges.

Fit matters as much as credentials. A lawyer who has argued often before the panel in Austin understands how its justices read records and how they treat preservation of error. Preservation decides many appeals before the merits are reached, so a good lawyer asks early what was objected to below. That familiarity does not guarantee a win, and no honest lawyer promises one. What it buys is judgment about which issues to raise and which to drop, since a brief that presses every possible point usually weakens the strong ones. Ask a prospective lawyer which issues in your case are worth this court reading, and listen for candor rather than comfort.

Return to where Section 1 began. The court corrects legal error and polices the bounds of the evidence, and it does not retry the facts. The lawyer you hire should think in those terms from the first meeting and frame the appeal around the errors the record can support. A client who understands the court's role, and who checks a lawyer's standing before signing, walks into the appeal on solid footing.