Opinion
No. 0365-03
Delivered: October 13, 2004. DO NOT PUBLISH.
On Appellant's Petition for Discretionary Review from the Sixth Court of Appeals, Walker County.
HERVEY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which MEYERS, and KEASLER, JJ., joined. Keller, PJ., and WOMACK, J., concurred. JOHNSON, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which PRICE, HOLCOMB and COCHRAN, JJ., joined.
OPINION
In this case, we decide that the Court of Appeals did not abuse its discretion to exercise its inherent power to dismiss appellant's appeal for "want of prosecution" and for his bad-faith abuse of the judicial process. We set out verbatim the facts from the opinion of the Court of Appeals. Emmitt [sic] Brager has filed an appeal from his conviction by a jury for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a deadly weapon in a penal institution. The clerk's record was filed in this case on December 27, 2001, and the reporter's record was filed on April 8, 2002. Brager is representing himself in his appeal. Brager has devoted an enormous amount of effort in this appeal to addressing peripheral matters. His brief was originally due on May 8, 2002. Instead of preparing a brief, Brager attempted to show this Court through multiple motions that both records were incomplete or inaccurate. We abated the appeal to the trial court for a hearing. The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing, at which Brager was present, and concluded, based on the evidence, that the clerk's and reporter's records were both complete and accurate. During this time period, Brager also filed a series of motions, which were overruled, seeking to recuse all of the justices on this Court. His petition asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to review those orders was dismissed. Brager also filed a series of motions with this Court requesting more time to file his appellate brief and asking us to order the penal institution in which he is incarcerated to deliver to him all of his legal records so that he could prepare his brief. Prison officials informed this Court that Brager had multiple duffle bags full of documents. The penal institution requires prisoners to follow certain procedures in obtaining documents and sets certain limitations on the quantity of paper materials an inmate can access at one time. The institution informed this Court that Brager had refused to avail himself of that avenue and that he had effectively taken an "all or nothing" position and demanded access to all his documents at once. Failing that, he refused to accept any of them. Brager then came before this Court asking us to order the prison to provide all of the documents at once. We declined to do so. Brager continues to file motions to extend time to file his appellate brief in which he asks for extensions of thirty days from the date on which all of his documents are finally delivered to him. We have denied those motions and reminded him of the date his brief was due. In our last order in this case, we ordered Brager to file his brief no later than December 9, 2002. The original due date for Brager's brief was over eight months ago, and it has been over four months since Brager's last contention about the completeness of the record was finally resolved. Brager has had every opportunity to pursue this appeal but has not done so. Accordingly, we dismiss this appeal, under our inherent authority, for want of prosecution. (Citations omitted). Brager v. State, No. 06-01-00131-CR slip op. at 2-3 (Tex.App.-Texarkana, delivered February 11, 2003) (not designated for publication). We exercised our discretionary authority to review this decision. The sole ground upon which we granted discretionary review states: The 6th Court of Appeals erred and deprived petitioner of his right under the 14th Amendment due process of law clause of the U.S. Constitution, by dismissing the direct appeal of the instant case for want of prosecution. Article V, § 6, Tex. Const., creates, and sets out the jurisdiction of, the courts of appeals. Article V, § 6(a), states:
The state shall be divided into courts of appeals districts, with each district having a Chief Justice, two or more other Justices, and such other officials as may be provided by law. The Justices shall have the qualifications prescribed for Justices of the Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals may sit in sections as authorized by law. The concurrence of a majority of the judges sitting in a section is necessary to decide a case. Said Court of Appeals shall have appellate jurisdiction co-extensive with the limits of their respective districts, which shall extend to all cases of which the District Courts or County Courts have original or appellate jurisdiction, under such restrictions and regulations as may be prescribed by law. Provided, that the decision of said courts shall be conclusive on all questions of fact brought before them on appeal or error. Said courts shall have such other jurisdiction, original or appellate, as may be prescribed by law.It is well established that "[e]very court has inherent power, exercisable in its sound discretion, consistent within the constitution and statutes, to control disposition of causes on its docket with economy of time and effort." Latham v. Casey King Corporation, 127 N.W.2d 225, 226 (Wis. 1964) quoting 14 Am.Jur., § 171, Inherent Powers of Courts, 1963, pocket ed. p. 77; see Chambers v. Nasco, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 35, 43-51 (1991) (exploring the scope of the inherent power of a federal court to sanction a litigant for bad-faith conduct); Kutch v. Del Mar College, 831 S.W.2d 506, 510 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 1992, no writ). This inherent judicial power "is not derived from legislative grant or specific constitutional provision, but from the very fact that the court has been created and charged by the constitution with certain duties and responsibilities." See State v. Johnson, 821 S.W.2d 609, 612 (Tex.Cr.App. 1991) quoting and relying on Eichelberger v. Eichelberger, 582 S.W.2d 395, 398-400 (Tex. 1979). A court's broad range of inherent powers are those "which it may call upon to aid in the exercise of its jurisdiction, in the administration of justice, and in the preservation of its independence and integrity." See Johnson, 821 S.W.2d at 612; Eichelberger, 582 S.W.2d at 398. This includes the power to impose sanctions for a litigant's misconduct other than those sanctions authorized by procedural rules which punish the same conduct. See Chambers, 501 U.S. at 49. A court's inherent power to dismiss a party's cause of action is usually reserved for those situations in which a party has failed to prosecute his action or in which a party has engaged in serious misconduct such as bad-faith abuse of the judicial process. See Chambers, 501 U.S. at 46-50; Kutch, 831 S.W.2d at 510-11 (inherent power to punish exists to extent necessary to deter, alleviate, and counteract bad-faith abuse of the judicial process such as any significant interference with the traditional core functions of Texas courts). The "absence of notice as to the possibility of dismissal or the failure to hold an adversary hearing" do not necessarily render such a dismissal void particularly where the offending party should have known of the possible consequences of his misconduct or where some post-dismissal procedure exists where the offender may be heard. See Link v. Wabash Railroad Company, 370 U.S. 626, 632-33 (1962). Consistent with this Court's decision in Johnson, the Texas Supreme Court's decision in Eichelberger and the other authorities cited so far, the Wisconsin Supreme Court explained the rationale for exercising the inherent judicial power to dismiss a party's cause of action:
The court's authority to dismiss actions emanates not merely from a need to prevent injustice to the parties in the particular action, but also from a need to prevent injustice to the operation of the judicial system as a whole. The circuit courts have a duty to discourage the protraction of litigation, preserve judicial integrity, and promote the orderly processing of cases. [Citation omitted]. Dismissal, in some instances, is necessary to maintain these interests. Each time the court's orders are disregarded, the administration of justice suffers because the court's time is misused to accommodate the noncomplying party's dilatoriness at the expense of the other party and all other litigants awaiting the court's attention. A continuing failure to sanction may be perceived by the noncomplying party and other litigants as a green light to flaunt [sic] court orders.Johnson v. Allis Chalmers Corporation, 470 N.W.2d 859, 867 (Wis. 1991). The record in this case supports findings that appellant has engaged in dilatory and bad-faith abuse of the judicial process rather than seriously pursuing his appeal and that no lesser sanction was available to preserve judicial integrity and to prevent appellant's significant interference with core judicial functions. See generally Kutch, 831 S.W.2d at 510-13. Moreover, the circumstances here (appellant's knowledge of the possible consequences of his serious misconduct and a post-dismissal opportunity to be heard in a motion for rehearing "were such as to dispense with the necessity for advance notice and hearing." See Link, 370 U.S. at 632-33. On this record, we cannot say that the Court of Appeals abused its discretion to dismiss appellant's appeal. See Kutch, 831 S.W.2d at 512; see also Link, 370 U.S. at 633 (whether such an order can stand on appeal depends not on power but on whether it was within the permissible range of the court's discretion). Appellant claims, however, that Tex.R.App.Proc. 38.8(b)(4) is a limitation on the inherent power of the Court of Appeals to dismiss his appeal. See Latham, 127 N.W.2d at 226 (court's inherent power must be exercised "consistent within the constitution and statutes"); Kutch, 831 S.W.2d at 510 (legislature's lawmaking powers may operate to limit certain exercises of inherent power); see also Chambers, 501 U.S. at 47-50 (courts should not lightly assume that Congress has intended to depart from established principles such as the scope of a court's inherent power); Link, 370 U.S. at 629-30 (court's inherent power to dismiss a party's cause of action under appropriate circumstances is of ancient origin). The various provisions in Tex.R.App.Proc. 38(b) set out the procedures for an appellate court to follow when an appellant has not filed a brief. When this occurs, these provisions require the appellate court to remand the case to the trial court to conduct a hearing and "to make appropriate findings and recommendations." Once this happens, Rule 38.8(b)(4) provides:
(4) Appellate court action. Based on the trial court's record, the appellate court may act appropriately to ensure that the appellant's rights are protected, including initiating contempt proceedings against appellant's counsel. If the trial court has found that the appellant no longer desires to prosecute the appeal, or that the appellant is not indigent but has not made the necessary arrangements for filing a brief, the appellate court may consider the appeal without briefs, as justice may require.Appellant claims that Rule 38.8(b)(4) prohibited the Court of Appeals from dismissing his appeal and required the Court of Appeals to "consider" his appeal without briefs and to search the record for "fundamental" error as this Court and other courts of appeals have done in other cases where a pro se appellant had not filed a brief. See, e.g., Lott v. State, 874 S.W.2d 687, 688 (Tex.Cr.App. 1994); Coleman v. State, 774 S.W.2d 736, 739 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1989, no pet.). Assuming that Rule 38.8(b)(4) applies here, it states that the appellate court may consider the appeal without briefs. It does not state that the appellate court must consider the appeal without briefs. Appellant also claims that Article 44.33(b), Tex. Code Crim. Proc., is a limitation on the inherent power of the Court of Appeals to dismiss his appeal. Article 44.33(b) provides: Appellant's failure to file his brief in the time prescribed shall not authorize dismissal of the appeal by the Court of Appeals or the Court of Criminal Appeals, nor shall the Court of Appeals or the Court of Criminal Appeals, for such reason, refuse to consider appellant's case on appeal. We, however, do not read the opinion of the Court of Appeals as dismissing appellant's appeal solely because he failed to file a brief. We read its opinion as dismissing appellant's appeal because appellant's entire course of conduct throughout these proceedings (of which his failure to file a brief was only a part) demonstrated bad-faith abuse of the judicial process. This case is very similar to Link, in which the Supreme Court upheld the district court's exercise of its inherent power to dismiss the plaintiff's cause of action. We need not decide whether the unexplained absence from a pretrial conference would alone justify a dismissal with prejudice if the record showed no other evidence of dilatoriness on the part of the plaintiff. For the District Court in this case relied on all the circumstances that were brought to its attention, including the earlier delays. [Footnote omitted]. And while the Court of Appeals did not expressly rest its judgment on petitioner's failure to prosecute, it nonetheless set out the entire history of the case (including the statement made by the district judge's secretary that it was "the oldest civil case on the court docket"), noted that the District Court had considered the absence at the pretrial conference in light of "the history of this litigation" and "of all the circumstances surrounding counsel's action in the case," [citation omitted], and held that there was no abuse of discretion in dismissing the action "under the circumstances of this case." [Citation omitted]. This obviously amounts to no broader a holding than that the failure to appear at a pretrial conference may, in the context of other evidence of delay, be considered by a District Court as justifying a dismissal with prejudice. [Footnote omitted] Nor need we consider whether the District Court would have been abusing its discretion had it rejected a motion under [a post-dismissal rule of procedure which authorizes the reopening of cases in which final orders have been erroneously entered] which was accompanied by a more adequate explanation for the absence of petitioner's counsel from the pretrial conference. No such motion was ever made, so that there is nothing in the record before us to indicate that counsel's failure to attend the pretrial conference was other than deliberate or the product of neglect. Link, 370 U.S. at 634-36. Similarly, appellant's failure to file his brief "in the context of other evidence of delay [and bad faith misconduct]" justified the dismissal of his appeal. See id. In addition, Link satisfactorily answers appellant's contention (adversely to appellant) that dismissal of his appeal denied him due process of law. The dissenting opinion would deprive the Court of Appeals of the discretion to protect its docket and its integrity by reading the word "may" out of Rule 38.8(b)(4) apparently because due process requires this to insure appellant his "day in court." But, due process does not guarantee a party his "day in court." Due process guarantees a party an opportunity to have his "day in court," and there can be no question that appellant has had ample opportunity to have his "day in court." See Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385, 394 (1914) ("fundamental requisite of due process of law is the opportunity to be heard"). The rule is the same in civil and in criminal cases. See Allen v. Georgia, 166 U.S. 138, 140-42 (1897) (applying civil rule to decide that it did not violate due process to dismiss death-penalty defendant's writ of error in the Georgia Supreme Court because the defendant had escaped even though he was later recaptured). The dissenting opinion also claims that Article 44.33(b) prohibits the dismissal of appellant's appeal because it "appears" that his failure to file a brief was the real and only reason for the dismissal of his appeal. The lengthy factual recitation in the opinion of the Court of Appeals demonstrates otherwise, and the narrow holding in this case does not rest solely on appellant's failure to file a brief. It should be emphasized that the holding in this case is a narrow one. See Link, 370 U.S. at 635 (lower court's decision "obviously amounts to no broader a holding than" . . .). It does not open the door to the dismissal of a party's appeal except in the most extreme circumstances. And, even under these extreme circumstances, an intermediate appellate court still has the discretion to consider the appeal without briefs and to search the record for fundamental error. That the Court of Appeals has not exercised its discretion to do so here has not violated the due process rights of appellant who (even the dissent seems to agree) has engaged in bad-faith abuse of the judicial process. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
The record supports the factual assertions contained in the opinion of the Court of Appeals.
Compare State v. Braunsdorf, 297 N.W.2d 808, 815-16 (Wis. 1980) (trial courts have no inherent power to dismiss a criminal case with prejudice prior to attachment of jeopardy because this is not essential to existence of the orderly functioning of a trial court) accord Johnson, 821 S.W.2d at 613 (trial courts have no inherent power to dismiss a criminal prosecution because this does not serve to "enable our courts to effectively perform their judicial functions and to protect their dignity, independence and integrity") (internal quotes omitted).
Some courts have declined to follow Link and have held that federal due process requires notice and an opportunity to be heard prior to dismissal of a cause of action for failure to prosecute under Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), the "plain" language of which, with no mention of any notice requirement beforehand, authorizes a trial court in its discretion to dismiss a cause of action for failure to prosecute. See Dimon v. Mansy, 479 S.E.2d 339, 347-49 (W.Va. 1996) (believing that the time has arrived to disassociate the civil practice of West Virginia with the position taken in Link) and authorities cited therein; compare Bush v. State, 80 S.W.3d 199, 200 (Tex.App.-Waco 2002, no pet.) (appellate court dismissed appeal for "want of prosecution" when appellant failed to file brief after being ordered to do so and being warned that failure to file a brief could result in dismissal of appeal). Dimon, however, involved only a party's failure to prosecute, unaccompanied by any evidence of bad-faith abuse of the judicial process. See Dimon, 479 S.E.2d at 343. In addition, this Court would be hesitant to follow a decision that so lightly and categorically disregards United States Supreme Court precedent on a matter of federal constitutional law. See State v. Guzman, 959 S.W.2d 631, 633 (Tex.Cr.App. 1998) (courts required to follow Supreme Court precedent on matters of federal constitutional law).
Tex.R.App.Proc. 49.1 states:
A motion for rehearing may be filed within 15 days after the court of appeals' judgment or order is rendered. The motion must clearly state the points relied on for the rehearing.
See Lott, 874 S.W.2d at 688 n. 2 (predecessor to Rule 38.8(b) does not apply when appellant is pro se); Wade v. State, 31 S.W.3d 723, 725 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2000, pet. ref'd) (Rule 38.8(b)(4) designed to protect indigent defendant from failure of his appointed counsel to file a brief); Coleman, 774 S.W.2d at 738 (finding it unnecessary to again remand case to trial court to address the questions required by predecessor to Rule 38.8(b) because the "court already knows the answer to those questions"). Tex.R.App.Proc. 74( l) was the predecessor to Rule 38.8(b). See Wade, 31 S.W.3d at 725 n. 2.
The following cases present the situation in which a party fails to file a brief but there is no evidence of bad-faith misconduct. See Villarreal v. State, 455 S.W.2d 253 (Tex.Cr.App. 1970); Cogburn v. State, 452 S.W.2d 466 (Tex.Cr.App. 1970). In each of these cases, this Court reviewed the record for unassigned error and affirmed the convictions. See Villareal, 455 S.W.2d at 253; Cogburn, 452 S.W.2d at 467; compare Link, 370 U.S. at 634 (finding it unnecessary to decide whether unexplained absence from pretrial conference "would alone justify a dismissal with prejudice if the record showed no other evidence of dilatoriness on the part of the plaintiff" whose cause of action was dismissed by the district court under its inherent power) (emphasis in original).
Failing to appear at a pretrial conference after being ordered to do so is analogous to failing to file a brief after being ordered to do so.
Emphasis in original.
Emphasis in original.
Emphasis supplied.
DISSENTING OPINION
Appellant has expended enormous energy and many hours of time in activity the sole purpose of which appears to be to disrupt appellate review and annoy the court of appeals. While I have great empathy with and sympathy for the court of appeals, I do not agree with its resolution of the problem. In spite of appellant's deliberate, even malicious, abuse of the system, I believe that he is correct in asserting that Tex. Code Crim. Proc., art. 44.33(b) limits the ability of the court of appeals to dismiss his appeal for want of prosecution. The result of appellant's antics is that he has failed to file a brief. This appears to be the real reason for the dismissal of appellant's appeal; the court of appeals is exasperated and tired of wrangling with appellant over when his brief will be filed. The court of appeals has gone far beyond that which should be expected of it in the exercise of patience and forbearance in the face of appellant's dilatory exploits. However, the court of appeals had the power to cut short appellant's antics long before it did, and it probably should have done so. The court of appeals is barred by our code of criminal procedure from dismissing an appeal because of failure to file a brief. However, if an appellant does not file a brief after being afforded a reasonable opportunity to do so, the court of appeals has the authority to decide the case without appellant's assistance; it may review the record for fundamental error on its own motion and rule on the basis of that internal review. It is true that the rule says "may consider," not "must consider," but the charge given to our courts includes providing a day in court for all those who claim to be aggrieved, even the most undeserving. Appellant is entitled to be heard on his appeal, no matter how repugnant his actions in regard to the judicial system. Regardless of the provocation, judges are charged with following only the law-remaining above the fray, so to speak. I recognize that unassigned fundamental error is rare, but without a review of the record we cannot say with assurance that appellant does not have a legitimate complaint. I would remand to the court of appeals with instructions to review the record for fundamental error and rule accordingly. I respectfully dissent.