Background
A December 2020 agreed order required Father to pay Mother $1,840 in monthly child support but left blank the date on which payments would begin. In October 2024, Mother sought a judgment nunc pro tunc inserting January 1, 2021, as the start date. Father argued that adding the date would correct a judicial error, not a clerical one, after the trial court’s plenary power had expired.
At the hearing, the attorney who prepared the agreed order testified that the parties intended child support to begin shortly after entry of the order and that the trial court’s standard practice was to begin support on the first day of the following month. But Mother acknowledged that she and Father never agreed on a specific start date. No oral rendition, docket entry, or initial income-withholding order identified January 1, 2021, as the start date. The trial court nevertheless granted nunc pro tunc relief and inserted that date.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Court of Appeals held that omitting the child-support start date was a judicial error that could not be corrected through a judgment nunc pro tunc after the trial court lost plenary power. A nunc pro tunc order may correct only a clerical failure to record the judgment actually rendered; it cannot make a substantive change requiring judicial reasoning or determination.
The record did not clearly and convincingly establish that January 1, 2021, was part of the judgment originally rendered. Because the agreed written order became the trial court’s judgment when signed, the omission in the attorney-prepared order was judicial rather than clerical. The appellate court therefore held the nunc pro tunc order void, vacated it, and reinstated the December 28, 2020 SAPCR order.
Key Takeaways
- A judgment nunc pro tunc may correct the written record to reflect a judgment actually rendered, but it may not supply a substantive term omitted from that judgment.
- Evidence of customary practice or general intent does not establish a specific omitted term when no oral rendition, docket entry, withholding order, or party agreement identifies that term.
- An attorney’s omission in a proposed order becomes a judicial error when the trial court signs the order as its judgment.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the narrow scope of nunc pro tunc relief in Texas. Once plenary power expires, a trial court cannot use that procedure to select and add a child-support start date that the original judgment did not contain.
For family-law practitioners, the opinion highlights the importance of verifying that agreed SAPCR orders include every material support term before they are signed. Later conduct and income withholding may not supply clear and convincing proof that a particular omitted date was part of the judgment actually rendered.