Background
Haley Thompson appealed from a judgment of the County Court at Law No. 1 of Bell County, cause number 26CCV00695, presided over by the Honorable Paul A. Motz. The appeal was docketed in the Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, at Austin, as No. 03-26-00696-CV, with Jim Wright Company as appellee.
Under the appellate briefing schedule, Thompson’s opening brief was originally due on September 21, 2026. When that deadline passed without a filing, the court of appeals on October 5, 2026, sent Thompson a notice advising that her brief was overdue and warning that failure to file a satisfactory response by October 15, 2026, would result in dismissal of the appeal for want of prosecution.
As of the date of the court’s memorandum opinion, Thompson had filed neither a brief nor a motion for extension of time. The public opinion contains no statement of the underlying facts of the dispute between Thompson and Jim Wright Company, no description of the trial court’s rulings, and no explanation for the appellant’s failure to comply with the briefing schedule.
The Court’s Holding
The court of appeals dismissed the appeal for want of prosecution. Citing Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 42.3(b), the court held that dismissal was appropriate because the appellant, after receiving notice and an opportunity to cure, had not filed a brief or sought an extension of time.
The opinion is a memorandum opinion and states only the procedural basis for the dismissal: the missed September 21, 2026 briefing deadline, the court’s October 5, 2026 notice with its October 15, 2026 cure deadline, and the appellant’s continued failure to respond. The court did not reach the merits of any issue in the underlying case, and it articulated no legal analysis beyond the application of Rule 42.3(b) to the undisputed procedural record.
The disposition is expressly limited to this appeal and this appellant’s default. The court did not announce any general rule beyond the cited rule of appellate procedure, did not impose sanctions, and did not address any conduct by the appellee. The order states simply: “Dismissed for Want of Prosecution.”
Key Takeaways
- The Third Court of Appeals dismissed Haley Thompson’s appeal for want of prosecution under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 42.3(b) after she failed to file an opening brief or an extension motion.
- The court first issued a notice giving the appellant a cure opportunity: an October 5, 2026 letter warned that the overdue brief had to be addressed by October 15, 2026, or the appeal would be dismissed.
- The dismissal is purely procedural. The court decided nothing about the merits of the underlying Bell County case, and the opinion supplies no facts about the dispute between the parties.
- The ruling is circumstance-specific: it rests on this appellant’s failure to respond after notice, not on any new or universal standard for dismissals under Rule 42.3(b).
Why It Matters
The decision is a routine but instructive application of Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 42.3(b), which permits a court of appeals to dismiss an appeal when the appellant fails to timely file a brief after notice. It illustrates the court’s practice of providing a warning and a cure period before dismissing, and it confirms that an appellant who ignores both the original briefing deadline and the court’s follow-up notice risks losing the appeal entirely without any review of the merits.
For practitioners, the case underscores the importance of calendaring appellate briefing deadlines and responding promptly to deficiency notices from the clerk’s office. Because the dismissal is for want of prosecution, the appellant forfeits appellate review of whatever issues she may have wished to raise from the Bell County judgment. The opinion itself, however, adds no new legal doctrine and should be cited, if at all, only for its straightforward application of Rule 42.3(b) to an unexcused failure to brief.