Background
Angel C. Gonzales filed a restricted appeal on April 28, 2026, in the Texas Court of Appeals, Fourth District, claiming he wanted to appeal from a final judgment or dismissal order supposedly signed by the state trial court on January 28, 2026. However, when the clerk’s record was filed on June 12, 2026, it contained no such judgment or order. The Bexar County District Clerk’s Office confirmed that the trial court had not signed any judgments or orders on that date.
The appellate court issued an order requiring Gonzales to show cause why the appeal should not be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. In his June 24, 2026 response, Gonzales revealed that the order he actually wanted to challenge had been “entered in proceedings pending before the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas”—a federal court, not a state trial court.
The Texas Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The court stated that appellate jurisdiction is limited to appeals from written, signed final judgments and appealable interlocutory orders of the trial court. Because no state trial court judgment or order existed, and because the order Gonzales sought to challenge originated from a federal court, the state appellate court lacked the authority to review it.
The court emphasized that state appellate courts cannot review orders issued by federal courts. Gonzales’s appeal was therefore properly dismissed as falling outside the court’s jurisdictional authority.
This case serves as a cautionary reminder that jurisdiction is a threshold requirement in appellate practice. Filing an appeal in a state appellate court to challenge a federal order is futile and will result in dismissal. Attorneys and pro se litigants must carefully identify which court issued the judgment or order being appealed and file in the appropriate appellate court—federal appeals go to federal appellate courts, and state appeals go to state appellate courts.
The decision also underscores the jurisdictional requirement that appeals must be based on a written, signed order from the trial court. Vague or mistaken representations about the source of the order will not save an appeal that lacks a proper jurisdictional basis.
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