Opinion
05-23-00161-CV
03-01-2024
DEYLAN WALKER, Appellant v. SONIA DIAZ, S.I.U., ET AL., Appellees
On Appeal from the 101st Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. DC-19-14300
ORDER
BILL PEDERSEN, III JUSTICE
Appellant's brief in this appeal has not been filed. It was first due January 3, 2024, and after we granted appellant's January 4, 2024 extension motion, February 2, 2024. When appellant had not filed the brief by February 6, 2024, we directed appellant to file the brief within ten days along with an extension motion that complied with Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 10.5(b). Appellant did not comply, but on February 28, 2024, he filed an amended emergency motion for extension of time to file the brief and for a hearing concerning the reporter's record. The motion, and a supplement to the motion, are now before the Court.
In the motion and supplement, appellant asserts he has not received a ruling on his January 4th extension motion and has not received hard copies of the reporter's record. Additionally, he challenges generally the accuracy of the reporter's record and challenges the fees he paid the reporters-Norma Rico, Kelley Simmons, and Terri Etekochay-for the preparation of the record. He requests we (1) extend the deadline to file his brief to March 30, 2024, (2) order the reporters to provide him a hard copy of the record, and (3) order the trial court to conduct a hearing (a) to determine if the record is accurate, (b) for the reporters to prove-up their fees, and (c) for Ms. Etekochay to prove-up the fees for certain records that have not yet been prepared and filed.
We note that the appeal was filed February 17, 2023, and in the year since the appeal was filed, we have determined no less than seven motions concerning the reporter's record, granted record extensions totaling over six months, and denied at least two motions seeking additional record extensions. We further note that on November 6, 2023, we provided appellant a copy of the Court's "Information for People without Lawyers" handout, which explains, in relevant part, that a party may obtain a copy of the appellate record from the Court during business hours. Accordingly, we DENY the motion TO THE EXTENT it concerns the reporter's record. We GRANT the motion TO THE EXTENT we ORDER appellant to file his brief no later than April 1, 2024. See TEX. R. APP. P. 4.1(A).
We caution appellant that no further extension motions or motions concerning the record will be considered and failure to file the brief by April 1, 2024 will result in the appeal being dismissed without further notice. See TEX. R. App. P. 38.8(a)(1), 42.3(b),(c).
We note that, at appellant's request, all written communications with appellant occur via the U.S. Postal Service. In light of appellant's assertion that he did not receive notice that we had granted his January 4th motion, we DIRECT the Clerk of the Court, in addition to sending the parties a copy of this order, to call appellant to inform him the Court has ruled on the motion and that appellant may obtain from the Court a copy of the order during business hours should he not receive the order by March 6, 2024.