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One routine per curiam [order list of Jan. 22, 2010]

By Don Cruse, Esq.

With today’s order list, the Texas Supreme Court issued one per curiam opinion that was a routine application of a holding it made last year about preserving error in parental-termination cases.

In re J.H.G., No. 09-0531 (per curiam) (more info)

This was a parental-termination case in which more than one year elapsed between the state taking temporary custody of the child and the trial court’s ultimate order of termination.

The parent filed a statement of points of error in the trial court, as required by statute, but did not list among those errors the trial court’s extension past the one-year deadline.

The parent first raised this error on appeal. The court of appeals concluded that it could reach the question because it implicated subject-matter jurisdiction.

The Texas Supreme Court reversed, citing its decision last year in In re Department of Family and Protective Services, 273 S.W.3d 637, 642 (Tex. 2009) (docket and briefs), in which the Court held that this one-year deadline was a procedural error that had to be preserved in the trial court — not a question of subject-matter jurisdiction that could be raised for the first time on appeal.

Full post as published by Supreme Court of Texas Blog on February 10, 2010 (boomark / email).