In the Interest of J.M. a Child

Supreme Court of Texas
══════════
No. 25-0941
══════════

In the Interest of J.M., a Child

═══════════════════════════════════════
On Petition for Review from the
Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas
═══════════════════════════════════════

JUSTICE SULLIVAN, joined by Justice Young, concurring in the
denial of the petition for review.

In this sad case, as in too many others, the district court blew the
90-day deadline for rendering a final order in a parental-termination
suit. See Tex. Fam. Code § 263.4011. The court allowed a trial with a
grand total of three witnesses to drag on for five months. Unlike the
deadline for commencing a trial, the deadline for completing it isn’t
jurisdictional. Compare id. § 263.401(a) (commencement deadline), with
id. § 263.4011 (completion deadline). Although I agree that we shouldn’t
take up this case, I write separately to remind lower courts that we
expect them to take all their statutory duties seriously, not just the ones
that carry jurisdictional consequences.

I
In September 2024, two days before the deadline for commencing
trial, the district court called the case to order and announced that it
was “going to start the trial and recess it.” The court explained that,
although it was “not going to trial today,” it had to “get some testimony”
on the record so it wouldn’t lose jurisdiction. The court heard testimony
via “Zoom” about the child’s placement status from a supervisor at the
Department of Family and Protective Services. After three minutes or
so, the court decided that was “good enough” to check the box on
commencement and recessed the trial for a month and a half. The court
never heard the rest of that witness’s testimony, and the parents never
got a chance to cross-examine her.
When trial nominally resumed in November, the court recessed
immediately without hearing any witnesses or admitting any exhibits. 1
A month later, trial reconvened and the court admitted some exhibits
and heard another witness’s testimony. The court recessed again—this
time for two months—before reconvening in February 2025. The court
heard from a third and final witness, then terminated the parents’
rights. And that’s how a four-hour trial took five months to complete.

II
District courts dragging out parental-termination trials isn’t a
new problem. But it’s a big one. That’s why the Legislature commanded
courts to complete parental-termination trials within 90 days, except in
certain situations not present here. Tex. Fam. Code § 263.4011.

1 The clerk’s record indicates that the court resumed trial on November

7, 2024, but we have no reporter’s record of those proceedings.

2
A
The automatic-dismissal statute, Section 263.401 of the Family
Code, has long required a court to commence a parental-termination
trial within one year of removal. When Section 263.401 was first enacted
in 1997, it obliged a court to “render[] a final order” within one year of a
child’s removal. Act of May 28, 1997, 75th Leg., R.S., ch. 600, § 17, 1997
Tex. Gen. Laws 2108, 2113. A decade later, the Legislature amended the
statute to provide instead that a court must “commence[] the trial on the
merits” within one year. Act of May 27, 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., ch. 866, § 2,
2007 Tex. Gen. Laws 1837, 1837. This deadline for commencing trial
carries jurisdictional consequences. See Tex. Fam. Code § 263.401(a);
In re C.S., ___ S.W.3d ___ (Tex. June 5, 2026).
From 2007 to 2021, there was no deadline to finish a trial once it
started, meaning that children could “remain in DFPS conservatorship
and [be] shuffled from foster home to foster home for . . . years.” In re
J.D.G., 570 S.W.3d 839, 857 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2018, pet.
denied) (Brown, J., concurring). Some district courts exploited this gap
in the automatic-dismissal statute by nominally commencing a trial
right at the deadline and then recessing until they were ready to take
up the substance of the case.
This problem came to a head in J.D.G., where a Harris County
district court took over a year and a half to conduct a trial that saw just
four witnesses give a combined total of forty pages of testimony. See id.
at 847 & n.7 (majority opinion). The court commenced trial on time,
admitted a few exhibits, and heard one witness’s testimony. Id. When
the court took over the direct examination itself and the witness couldn’t

3
answer its questions, the court abruptly recessed trial. Id. The court
never finished hearing that witness.
Over the next eighteen months, the court nominally reconvened
trial several times, only to recess without hearing any witnesses or
admitting any exhibits. When the court finally reconvened the
substance of the trial—almost three years after the children had been
removed—the court briefly heard three witnesses before terminating
the mother’s parental rights. Id. at 848–49.
It’s upsetting that a Texas court would allow an ongoing parental-
termination trial to languish on its docket for so long. But because there
was no statute banning the practice at that time, the district court in
J.D.G. apparently felt at liberty to take its sweet time. Thankfully, the
Legislature has since imposed a shot clock of ninety days from the timely
commencement of trial. See Act of April 28, 2021, 87th Leg., R.S., ch. 8,
§ 10, 2021 Tex. Gen. Laws 10, 15 (codified at Tex. Fam. Code § 263.4011).

B
That brings us back to the present case, where the very same
district court that held an eighteen-month trial in J.D.G. has returned
to its old shenanigans. Now under a new judge, that court let a trial
with three witnesses drag on for five months. Astute mathematicians
will notice that five months is longer than the ninety days the court was
statutorily allowed to take. See Tex. Fam. Code § 263.4011(a).
Nothing in the record before us suggests that the district court
granted a written extension of the ninety-day deadline for completing

4
the trial, as the statute allowed. See id. § 263.4011(c). 2 Quite the
opposite. When presented with Father’s motion for a good-cause
extension, in which he requested more time to complete his service plan
because he was in jail, the district court denied the motion. Yet the court
later continued the trial until well after the very deadline that it had
refused to extend.
Even worse, the district court admitted that it had commenced
trial as “a pro[ ]forma start and recess,” without “get[ting] to the meats
and potatoes,” just to hit the commencement deadline. That deadline
is jurisdictional. See Tex. Fam. Code § 263.401(a); In re C.S., ___
S.W.3d at ___. The court had already used its one-time, extraordinary-
circumstances extension of that deadline. See Tex. Fam. Code
§ 263.401(b). 3 Having used up the time allotted by the Legislature, it
would’ve lost jurisdiction if it hadn’t started the trial that it recessed
just a few minutes later.
I don’t mean to suggest that letting the case be dismissed would’ve
been a better decision. It probably would’ve been worse. Here’s what the
district court should’ve done instead: Commence the trial on time, try to

2 The record before us is incomplete because the parties didn’t give us

the full clerk’s record and the district court sealed the entire file (as seems to
be a routine practice in Harris County). But see Tex. Fam. Code § 161.210;
Tex. R. Civ. P. 76a. But the portions of the clerk’s record that we do have, along
with the reporter’s record, indicate that the district court didn’t extend the
completion deadline.
3 The order granting the extraordinary-circumstances extension listed

two different dates. The order was file-stamped and electronically served on
March 22, 2024 (three days before the dismissal deadline), but it purports to
have been signed on April 1, 2024 (over a week after the deadline). I’ll assume
the latter date was a typo, such that the court validly extended its jurisdiction.

5
hear real testimony from at least one witness, and then recess for fewer
than 90 days before hearing the rest of the witnesses and rendering a
final order. See id. § 263.4011(a). Had the district court been more
attentive to its statutory duties, it might’ve knocked out the whole trial
in one morning. But if that’s too much to ask, the court at least should’ve
rendered a written order extending the trial-completion deadline. See
id. § 263.4011(c). It’s unclear what good cause might’ve existed for an
extension, but the court should’ve either put one on paper or else
finished the trial on time.
Letting an ongoing parental-termination trial languish on the
docket for five months (let alone eighteen, as in J.D.G.) is unacceptable.
Such delay is hard to imagine happening in any other civil case, and it’d
probably be unconstitutional in a criminal case. See Tex. Const. art. I,
§ 10; U.S. Const. amend. VI. Parental-termination cases demand no less
diligence from bench and bar, given that the interests at stake are of
constitutional magnitude. See Tex. Const. art. I, § 37; In re D.T., 625
S.W.3d 62, 69 (Tex. 2021). Ninety days was more than enough time for
the district court to complete this three-witness trial.

* * *
I agree with today’s denial of review because the only remedy for
the district court’s blown deadline would’ve been a writ of mandamus.
See Tex. Fam. Code § 263.4011(d). Neither parent sought that relief
during trial, so it’s too late for us to do anything now. But while the
deadline for completing a parental-termination trial isn’t jurisdictional,
it is a duly enacted law. When lawyers break the law in the courtroom,
we judges wield the awesome power to throw them in jail for contempt.

6
We bear a corresponding responsibility not to act hypocritically by
breaking the law ourselves. Cf. Matthew 7:3–5. Here’s hoping that
today’s gentle reminder will help keep this Court from having “to break
out the big stick” of mandamus in future cases. In re Core Commc’ns,
Inc., 531 F.3d 849, 862 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (Griffith, J., concurring).

James P. Sullivan
Justice

OPINION FILED: June 5, 2026

7