Opinion
Appellate case number: 01-16-00396-CV
11-03-2016
In the Interest of K. L. L. a child v. Department of Family and Protective Services
ORDER Trial court case number: 2015-39280 Trial court: 257th District Court of Harris County
Appellant, William Solomon Lewis, attempted to appeal the trial court's dismissal of his pro se petition seeking to terminate his parental rights. On August 23, 2016, this Court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction because Lewis's notice of appeal was untimely. On September 29, 2016, the clerk of this court received (1) a motion from Lewis requesting a 15-day extension of time to file a motion for rehearing, (2) a motion to amend his notice of appeal, and (3) a "Motion to reinstate the Appeal as a Restricted Appeal or to Reinstate the Appeal in Part to Only Include the Motion to Reinstate the Case from the Trial Court." Through these three motions, Lewis seeks to reinstate his dismissed appeal in this court as either a restricted appeal or as an appeal of the motion to reinstate the case from the trial court.
The deadline for filing a motion for rehearing of our decision was September 7, 2016. Although Lewis claims that his extension motion should be considered as having been submitted on September 19, 2016 under the mailbox rule, neither his motion nor its attachments indicate the date that his motion was delivered to prison officials. But even if we granted the extension and even if Lewis were allowed to amend his notice of appeal following its dismissal, his request to reinstate the appeal as either a restricted appeal or as an appeal from the trial court's denial of his motion to reinstate fails on the merits because (1) Lewis fails to demonstrate the requirements for a restricted appeal and (2) his appeal is from the trial court's dismissal, not its denial of his motion to reinstate.
In his motion to reinstate, Lewis claims that his notice of appeal was filed on May 3, 2016 under the mailbox rule rather than May 11, 2016. But even if the notice of appeal was considered filed on May 3, 2016, it was still untimely because it was filed one-hundred-and-forty days after the dismissal on November 16, 2015 and one-hundred-and-seventeen days after January 7, 2016, the date Lewis claims he received actual notice of the dismissal. Lewis reiterates his unsupported argument that his time for filing a notice of appeal ran from the denial of his motion to reinstate by operation of law. We rejected this argument in our opinion and explained that, under the applicable Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, the notice of appeal deadline ran from the date Lewis claimed to have received actual notice of the dismissal, not the denial of his motion to reinstate.
Accordingly, the motions are denied.
It is so ORDERED. Judge's signature: /s/ Jane Bland
[×] Acting individually Date: November 3, 2016