Opinion
NO. 09-17-00183-CV
08-10-2017
ANN ADKISSON LACKEY, ET AL., Appellants v. LINDA TEMPLETON, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS TRUSTEE IN THE WILL OF DOYLE WADE TEMPLETON, ET AL., Appellees
On Appeal from the 1A District Court Jasper County, Texas
Trial Cause No. 34173
ORDER
In a suggestion of jurisdictional defect, appellant, BP America Production Company, contends the trial court's April 19, 2017 severance order failed to dispose of all of the claims before the trial court. The order states in part that "[t]he purpose of this Order of Severance and Order of Abatement is to render final for purposes of appeal all previous orders signed by the Court in this case, Cause No. 34173." Upon review of the clerk's records and considering the parties' arguments concerning the finality of the order signed on April 19, 2017, we conclude that the trial court severed the appellees' claims for attorney's fees under the Declaratory Judgment Act and the appellees' non-Declaratory Judgment Act claims into a separate case and that the order of April 19, 2017 finally disposed of the appellees' requests for affirmative relief under the Declaratory Judgment Act in Cause Number 34173. We further conclude that the trial court's intent to finally dispose of the case is unequivocally expressed in the words of the order itself. See Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191, 200, 205 (Tex. 2001). Accordingly, we have jurisdiction over this appeal with respect to the orders the trial court rendered on the appellees' declaratory judgment actions. At this time we neither consider nor decide whether rendition of a final judgment was proper.
ORDER ENTERED August 10, 2017.
PER CURIAM Before Kreger, Horton, and Johnson, JJ.