In the Interest of M.W.

959 S.W.2d 661, 1997 WL 461909
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 30, 1997
Docket12-96-00296-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by97 cases

This text of 959 S.W.2d 661 (In the Interest of M.W.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In the Interest of M.W., 959 S.W.2d 661, 1997 WL 461909 (Tex. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

HOLCOMB, Justice.

This is an appeal of a judgment rendered in a suit affecting a parent/child relationship *663 in which custody of a minor child, M.W. (“the child”), was awarded to her paternal grandmother, Linda Warren (“Grandmother”), over the objection of Appellant Diana Bryant (“Mother”), her natural mother. From the trial court’s order awarding managing con-servatorship to Grandmother, Mother brings three points of error. We reverse and render as to Grandmother’s appointment as managing conservator, and remand Father’s Motion to Modify for further trial court proceedings.

The record shows that Mother gave birth to the child on December 15, 1991. Shortly thereafter, Mother filed a paternity action against Tony Warren (“Father”), a man to whom she had never been married. 1 He contested his paternity. In October of 1992, the court rendered judgment establishing Father’s paternity of the child, and required him to pay child support. Mother was named the sole managing conservator. In May of 1993, Father and Mother entered into a written agreement which was signed by both parties and notarized before a notary public. The substance of the agreement was that Father would have temporary custody of the child from May of 1998 until May of 1995, and that Father’s custody would not be construed as abandonment by Mother. After entering into the agreement, Mother moved to Kerens, Texas, where she lived with her family, attended Navarro Junior College, and worked full time at the Kmart Distribution Center. In May of 1995, Mother completed her degree. In July of 1995, Father filed a Motion to Modify, seeking to be named managing conservator. The court granted his request for a temporary restraining order, preventing Mother from seeing the child. On August 18, 1995, the trial court entered temporary orders and named Father as managing conservator of the child. After a negative report from the court-appointed psychologist concerning Father, Grandmother filed a Petition in Intervention on December 7,1995, requesting that the court appoint her as the child’ sole managing conservator. On or about January 31, 1996, in a non-jury trial, the trial court granted Grandmother’s petition. Father and Mother were appointed possessory conservators.

In her first point of error, Mother maintains that the trial court erred in failing to file findings of fact and conclusions of law. Pursuant to Tex.R.App.P. 81(a), we ordered this appeal be abated and remanded to the trial court for entry of findings of fact and conclusions of law as requested by Appellant. The trial court complied with this court’s order, thereby correcting the error. Mother’s first point of error is overruled.

In Mother’s second point of error, she alleges that the trial judge erred in taking judicial notice of evidence from the temporary hearing, since he did not remember the case. • At the final hearing the following exchange occurred:

The Court: Okay. You are right. This is not the lady from Dallas; is it?
Mr. Norwood: No. she presently resides in Kerens, Your Honor.
The Court: Okay. Good. I was confusing this with that Dallas case. Just a second.
Mr. Norwood: We don’t want you to take judicial knowledge of the wrong ease.
Mr. Dunn: Would you like us to hit with you some of the brief facts?
The Court: I do too many of these at the same time. Okay. Yeah, I’ve got — that’s why I’m doing it this way, to make sure I’ve got it in my mind. Because before I do something that is bound to upset somebody, I want to make sure I’m doing it for the right reasons, and have the right case, and have the right history. The lady is in Kerens. Okay.
Mr. Norwood: The child I believe was born in December of 1991. So she would be a little over four years old.
The Court: Okay. I remember it then.
Mr. Norwood: So based upon that, we have stipulated that the Court can take *664 judicial knowledge of the previous testimony on the temporary hearings.
The Court: How could I not any way? Specifically, that’s one of the reasons that I went ahead to make sure that I remember the right case.
Mr. Norwood: There were a number of exhibits introduced. We would ask that the Court take judicial knowledge of those exhibits.
The Court: I will. I will do that.

Pursuant to Tex.R.Civ.Evid. 201, a trial judge may take judicial notice of a fact if it is “one not subject to reasonable dispute in that it is either (1) generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (2) capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot be questioned.” Besing v. Smith, 843 S.W.2d 20, 21 (Tex.1992). Facts that are notorious and indisputable, 2 or well known and easily ascertainable, 3 may be judicially noticed. Mother cites May v. May for the proposition that a trial judge cannot, however, take judicial notice of evidence formerly admitted at a hearing on temporary conser-vatorship when making a final determination as to conservatorship at a later time. May v. May, 829 S.W.2d 373, 376 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1992, writ denied). Although we agree that the trial court improperly took judicial notice of prior proceedings, Norwood, Mother’s attorney, was the party who requested the court to do so. If he had any misgivings about the court’s ability to remember the details of the previous hearings, he failed to voice them. A timely and proper objection is necessary to preserve error in the improper admission of evidence. Abeyta v. Travelers Insurance Co., 566 S.W.2d 708, 710 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1978, writ dismissed w.o.j.); Tex.R.Civ.Evid. 103(a)(1). By failing to object at trial, Mother cannot now complain on appeal that the court erred in taking judicial notice of the testimony and other evidence elicited at the hearings on temporary orders. We overrule point of error number two.

In her third point of error, Mother avers that the trial court erred in granting Grandmother’s Petition in Intervention and in appointing her managing conservator of the child because there is no evidence or, in the alternative, insufficient evidence, to support the court’s ruling. While findings of fact in a case tried to the court have the same force and dignity as a jury’s verdict upon jury questions, 4 the trial judge’s findings of fact are not conclusive when a complete statement of facts appears in the record. 5

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Bluebook (online)
959 S.W.2d 661, 1997 WL 461909, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-the-interest-of-mw-texapp-1997.