Billy Ray Johnson v. BancorpSouth Bank

In The
Court of Appeals
Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana
No. 06-19-00031-CV
BILLY RAY JOHNSON, ET AL., Appellants
V.
BANCORPSOUTH BANK, Appellee
On Appeal from the County Court at Law
Bowie County, Texas
Trial Court No. 18C0906-CCL
Before Morriss, C.J., Stevens and Carter,* JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Morriss
________________________________________
*Jack Carter, Justice, Retired, Sitting by Assignment
MEMORANDUM OPINION
BancorpSouth Bank filed a complaint for forcible detainer against Billy Ray Johnson on
July 26, 2018, in cause number 18C0906-CCL, styled BancorpSouth Bank v. Billy Ray Johnson,
et al. On August 27, 2018, the trial court entered an order consolidating cause number 18C0906-
CCL with cause number 14C0397-CCL, styled Juan Pena Garcia v. Billy Ray Johnson. The
consolidation order stated that “the parties shall be realigned in the new single case as follows:
Cause No. 18C0906-CCL.”
On March 20, 2019, the trial court entered an order granting nonsuit on the motion of
BancorpSouth, purporting to nonsuit BancorpSouth’s claims against Johnson and Garcia. Johnson
attempts to appeal the order of nonsuit, which effectively eliminated BancorpSouth’s claims
against him. Because BancorpSouth never asserted any claims against Garcia, it had no claims
against him to nonsuit. Instead, Garcia’s claims against Johnson were consolidated with
BancorpSouth’s claims in the trial court’s August 27 order. Garcia’s claims against Johnson have
not been nonsuited and remain live claims in the trial court.
Our jurisdiction, as an appellate court, is constitutional and statutory in nature. See TEX.
CONST. art. V, § 6; TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 22.220 (West Supp. 2018). Unless we are given
specific authority over an appeal from a particular type of order, we have jurisdiction only over
appeals from final judgments. Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191, 195 (Tex. 2001). It
appears that the order from which Johnson attempts to appeal was not a final, appealable order.
See id. at 191; Henderson v. S. Farm Bureau Ins. Co., 370 S.W.3d 1 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2012,
pet. denied). “A final judgment is one that disposes of all parties and issues in a lawsuit.”
2
Henderson, 370 S.W.3d. at 4. The order in this case does not dispose of all parties and issues in
the lawsuit.
By letter dated April 30, 2019, we informed Johnson of this potential defect in our
jurisdiction and afforded him the opportunity to demonstrate proper grounds for our retention of
the appeal. While Johnson filed a response, he failed to identify any authority to contradict the
conclusion that we are without jurisdiction over this appeal.
In light of the foregoing, we dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
Josh R. Morriss, III
Chief Justice
Date Submitted: May 21, 2019
Date Decided: May 22, 2019
3