Tim Bothe v. City of Fort Worth City of Mansfield Tarrant Regional Water District Tarrant County Tarrant County College District Tarrant County Hospital District Arlington Independent School District Fort Worth Independent School District And Mansfield Independent School District

• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas
• Decided: February 2, 2023
• Docket: 02-22-00490-CV
• Status: Published

Opinion

In the Court of Appeals Second Appellate District of Texas at Fort Worth ___________________________ No. 02-22-00490-CV ___________________________

TIM BOTHE, Appellant

V.

CITY OF FORT WORTH; CITY OF MANSFIELD; TARRANT REGIONAL WATER DISTRICT; TARRANT COUNTY; TARRANT COUNTY COLLEGE DISTRICT; TARRANT COUNTY HOSPITAL DISTRICT; ARLINGTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT; FORT WORTH INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT; AND MANSFIELD INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellees

On Appeal from the 96th District Court Tarrant County, Texas Trial Court No. 096-D31111-22

Before Kerr, Birdwell, and Bassel, JJ. Memorandum Opinion by Justice Kerr MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellant Tim Bothe filed a letter with us seeking to dispute “the total amount

due for delinquent taxes” claimed in a case still pending in the trial court. We have

construed Bothe’s letter as a notice of appeal.

The trial-court clerk informed us that the trial judge has not signed an order in

this case. We wrote to Bothe to notify him that it appeared that his notice of appeal

was premature because there was no final judgment or appealable order. See Tex. R.

App. P. 26.1, 27.1(a). We gave the parties 20 days to provide us with a signed copy of

the order Bothe seeks to appeal, see Tex. R. App. P. 44.3, 44.4(a)(2), and warned that if

the parties failed to do so, we would dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction, see

Tex. R. App. P. 42.3(a), 43.2(f).

Twenty days have passed, and we have not a received a signed copy of a final

judgment or appealable order. We thus dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction. 1

See Tex. R. App. P. 42.3(a), 43.2(f); see Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191,

195 (Tex. 2001) (explaining that an appellate court has jurisdiction over appeals from

final judgments and from certain interlocutory orders made appealable by statute).

1 This is Bothe’s second attempted appeal in this case. See Bothe v. City of Fort Worth, No. 02-22-00104-CV, 2022 WL 1682144, at *1 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth May 26, 2022, no pet.) (mem. op.). We dismissed his first appeal for the same jurisdictional defect. See id.

2 /s/ Elizabeth Kerr Elizabeth Kerr Justice

Delivered: February 2, 2023