INTEREST OF v. << (2025)

OPINION

Appellant A.W. (Mother) filed a bill of review challenging two separate final judgments that terminated her parental rights as to her children D.M.W. and J.J.W. She claimed that the intended adoptive father for the children fraudulently induced her to sign the affidavits of relinquishment on which the judgments were based. The trial judge denied her bill of review, and she appealed. We affirm.

I. Background

A. Facts

We draw the following facts from the evidence introduced at the bill-of-review hearing.

Mother has at least five children. At the time of the bill-of-review hearing, two of her three oldest children had previously been adopted by a couple named James and Jenie Wilson.

Mother's two youngest children, D.M.W. and J.J.W., were the subjects of two separate underlying court cases. Based on the cause numbers, we infer that the case about D.M.W. was filed in 2022 and the case about J.J.W. was filed in 2023. Mother testified that both cases were mediated, apparently in a single mediation. Mother, the Department of Family and Protective Services, and the Wilsons all participated in that mediation, and two separate mediated settlement agreements (MSAs) were reached in each case. The first MSA in each case concerned pre-adoption issues. In those MSAs, Mother promised to execute affidavits of relinquishment for D.M.W. and J.J.W. The Department promised to place the children with the Wilsons and not to remove them from the Wilsons absent endangerment of the children's physical, mental, or emotional wellbeing. The first MSA in each case also provided that Mother would have monthly visitation until the Department accepted Mother's voluntary relinquishments. The second MSA in each case addressed post-adoption events and created a possibility for Mother to have some contact with the children after their adoptions by the Wilsons. Mother testified that she signed an unrevoked affidavit of relinquishment “to both children.”

In April 2024, the judge in D.M.W.’s case signed an order terminating Mother's rights as to D.M.W. based on Mother's affidavit of relinquishment and the best interest of the child. In October 2024, an associate judge signed an order terminating Mother's rights as to J.J.W., also based on Mother's affidavit of relinquishment and the best interest of the child. Between those two events, however, Mother's scheduled August 21, 2024 visitation was canceled. Mother testified that she was told that Jenie Wilson had a family emergency. Although Mother had a visit with the children in September, she did not get a visit in October or thereafter. In November, Mother learned that the children had been removed from the Wilsons’ home in October because James Wilson had been arrested for possession of child pornography. Later, she learned of an allegation that James Wilson had been producing child pornography. After these events, the Department took the position that Mother was no longer entitled to visitation with the children because the MSAs’ visitation provisions depended on the children's being placed with the Wilsons.

Mother testified that James Wilson did not disclose at the mediation that he was addicted to child pornography or that his home was endangering. She further testified that she would not have signed any voluntary relinquishments if she had known those alleged facts.

B. Procedural History

In December 2024, Mother filed her original petition for bill of review. She alleged that she signed the affidavit of relinquishment because of fraud and deception by James Wilson.

In February 2025, the trial judge held an evidentiary hearing on Mother's bill of review. At the end of the hearing, the trial judge took the case under advisement and invited the parties to file briefs addressing whether relief could be granted to Mother based on fraud by James Wilson even though he was not a party to the two termination cases. Both sides filed such a brief.

The trial judge later signed an order denying Mother's petition for bill of review. The order recites that Mother's petition required her to prove fraud by the opposing party in the underlying termination cases and that she alleged fraud by a nonparty.

Mother timely appealed.

II. Issues Presented

Mother presents two issues on appeal. In her first issue, she argues that the trial judge erred by applying the traditional elements of a bill of review to her petition rather than the elements found in section 161.211 of the Texas Family Code. In her second issue, she argues that the trial judge should have granted her bill-of-review petition based on section 161.211 and the evidence adduced at the hearing.

III. Analysis

A. Applicable Law and Standard of Review

A bill of review is an equitable proceeding brought to set aside a judgment that is not void on the face of the record and that is no longer appealable or subject to a motion for new trial. King Ranch, Inc. v. Chapman, 118 S.W.3d 742, 751 (Tex. 2003). Ordinarily, a party seeking relief by bill of review must establish (1) a meritorious claim or defense; (2) the party was prevented from asserting her claim or defense by the fraud, accident, or wrongful act of her opponent or by official mistake; and (3) the party was prevented from asserting her claim or defense through no fault or negligence on her own part. See Ramsey v. Davis, 261 S.W.3d 811, 815 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2008, pet. denied). A bill of review is a direct attack on a judgment. In re D.S., 602 S.W.3d 504, 510 n.10 (Tex. 2020).

Mother relies on section 161.211(c) of the Texas Family Code, which provides as follows:

A direct or collateral attack on an order terminating parental rights based on an unrevoked affidavit of relinquishment of parental rights or affidavit of waiver of interest in a child is limited to issues relating to fraud, duress, or coercion in the execution of the affidavit.

Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 161.211(c).

We review the ruling on a bill of review for abuse of discretion. Ramsey, 261 S.W.3d at 815. A trial judge abuses his discretion if (1) he fails to analyze or apply the law correctly or (2) with regard to factual matters or matters committed to his discretion, he could reasonably reach only one decision and failed to do so. In re C.J., 689 S.W.3d 417, 420 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2024, no pet.).

B. Does section 161.211(c) supplant the traditional bill-of-review elements?

The pivotal legal question raised by this appeal is how section 161.211(c) interacts with the traditional law governing bills of review. Mother argues that section 161.211(c) supplies the only elements a bill-of-review petitioner must prove in order to set aside a termination order based on an unrevoked affidavit of relinquishment of parental rights. In other words, Mother argues that section 161.211(c) entitles her to bill-of-review relief if she proved that anyone—not just the opposing party in the underlying termination cases—defrauded her into executing her relinquishment affidavits. The Department, on the other hand, argues that section 161.211(c) does not supplant the traditional elements of a bill of review and that section 161.211(c) actually imposes additional requirements on anyone who challenges a termination judgment that is based on an affidavit of relinquishment or an affidavit of waiver of interest in a child. For the following reasons, we agree with the Department.

We decide questions of statutory construction de novo. In re D.S., 602 S.W.3d at 514. Our objective is to ascertain and effectuate the legislature's intent, and the truest manifestation of its intent is what it enacted. Id. We assume that the legislature chose the statutory language with care, purposefully including the words chosen and purposefully omitting all other words. Id.

We conclude that Mother's position cannot be squared with the statute's plain language. Again, the statute provides as follows:

A direct or collateral attack on an order terminating parental rights based on an unrevoked affidavit of relinquishment of parental rights or affidavit of waiver of interest in a child is limited to issues relating to fraud, duress, or coercion in the execution of the affidavit.

Fam. § 161.211(c). Mother's bill of review is a direct attack on two termination orders based on her unrevoked affidavit of relinquishment of parental rights, so section 161.211(c) applies to her bill of review. Thus, the issues she can assert are “limited” to issues relating to fraud, duress, or coercion in the execution of the affidavit. See id. We think this plainly means that a parent who attacks a termination order that is based on an unrevoked affidavit of relinquishment or waiver cannot argue that the order was erroneous because of an issue unrelated to fraud, duress, or coercion in the execution of the affidavit, no matter what procedural device the parent is using to attack the judgment. See Limit, Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1981) (stating that the verb limit “stresses the fact of [the] existence of boundaries”). We do not read section 161.211(c) to change or eliminate any other requirements associated with the procedural device invoked by the parent.

Mother's construction of section 161.211(c) gives the “is limited to” phrase an unreasonable interpretation. In her view, the statute actually means something like this:

Notwithstanding any other law, a direct or collateral attack on an order terminating parental rights based on an unrevoked affidavit of relinquishment of parental rights or affidavit of waiver of interest in a child must be sustained if the challenger shows fraud, duress, or coercion in the execution of the affidavit.

But the legislature chose instead to say that a direct or collateral attack on a termination order within this provision “is limited to issues relating to fraud, duress, or coercion in the execution of the affidavit.” Fam. § 161.201(c) (emphasis added). In our view, adopting Mother's interpretation would require us to ignore the settled law that we must enforce statutes as written and refrain from rewriting the text the legislature chose. See KMS Retail Rowlett, LP v. City of Rowlett, 593 S.W.3d 175, 183 (Tex. 2019).

Finally, we note the Texas Supreme Court's pronouncement that the point of section 161.211(c) is to “enhance[ ] reliability and finality of voluntary termination orders, allowing families to move forward with their lives with a measure of certainty.” In re D.S., 602 S.W.3d at 511. Under at least some circumstances, Mother's interpretation of section 161.211(c) would have the opposite effect of making termination orders more susceptible to being set aside on direct or collateral attack, thus reducing the reliability, finality, and certainty of those orders. This consequence weighs against the correctness of Mother's interpretation. See Tex. Gov't Code Ann. § 311.023(5) (stating that when construing a statute, a court may consider the “consequences of a particular construction”).

We conclude that section 161.211(c)’s plain meaning is that an attack on a covered termination order cannot succeed unless the challenger proves an issue relating to fraud, duress, or coercion in the execution of the affidavit; no other defects can be considered by the court. In the context of a bill of review, then, section 161.211(c) means that the first element—a meritorious defense to the underlying cause of action—must be a meritorious defense based on an issue relating to fraud, duress, or coercion in the execution of the affidavit. Under its plain language, section 161.211(c) simply does not speak to the other two elements of bill-of-review relief—that the petitioner was prevented from presenting her meritorious defense by fraud, accident, or wrongful act of her opponent or by official mistake, and that the party was prevented from asserting the defense through no fault or negligence of her own. See Ramsey, 261 S.W.3d at 815.

Mother cites several appellate decisions applying section 161.211(c), but none of them address the essential question of whether the statute supplants the traditional elements of a bill of review. The sole case from our Court that she cites for support does not support her position. See In re Reedle, No. 05-16-01483-CV, 2017 WL 944030 (Tex. App.—Dallas Mar. 10, 2017, orig. proceeding [mand. denied]) (mem. op.). In that case, a trial court terminated a mother's parental rights to her child based on the mother's affidavit of relinquishment, and in the same order it granted the Reedles’ application to adopt the child. Id. at *1. Then the mother timely filed a bill of review to set the order aside, and the trial judge granted the bill of review after a bench trial. Id. The Reedles sought mandamus relief from that order, and we denied the Reedles’ mandamus petition. Id. In our analysis, we recited both the traditional elements for a bill of review and the requirements of section 161.211(c). Id. at *2. Then we reviewed and rejected the Reedles’ arguments, which included sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenges to (1) the trial judge's finding that the mother was fraudulently induced into signing the affidavit (which was relevant to both the first element of a bill of review and the requirements of section 161.211(c)) and (2) the trial judge's finding that the mother was prevented from raising that meritorious defense by the fraud, accident, or wrongful act of the opposing party (as required by the second element of a bill of review). Id. at *3. Thus, in Reedle we took it for granted that a bill-of-review petitioner must prove both the traditional bill-of-review elements and the additional requirements of section 161.211(c) when that section applies.

Additionally, our interpretation of section 161.211(c) is supported by the Waco Court of Appeals’ decision in Luna v. Texas Department of Family & Protective Services, 432 S.W.3d 356 (Tex. App.—Waco 2014, no pet.). In that case, Luna's parental rights were terminated based on her affidavit of relinquishment of parental rights, and she later filed a bill of review claiming that her own attorney defrauded her into signing the affidavit. Id. at 357. The trial judge dismissed her bill of review, and the court of appeals affirmed for two independent reasons: Luna's bill was untimely under section 161.211(a), and she did not establish that she was prevented from making a meritorious defense by the fraud of her opponent in the termination case. Id. at 358. Thus, the court of appeals applied the traditional elements of a bill of review in order to bar relief even though section 161.211 applied to the case.

C. Conclusion

We conclude that section 161.211(c) does not relieve a bill-of-review petitioner from proving that she was prevented from making a meritorious defense in the underlying case by the fraud, accident, or wrongful act of her opponent, or by official mistake. See In re D.S., 602 S.W.3d at 510 n.10; Ramsey, 261 S.W.3d at 815. Accordingly, we overrule Mother's first issue on appeal. Because Mother's second issue depends on our deciding her first issue in her favor, we overrule her second issue as well.

IV. Disposition

We affirm the trial court's order denying Mother's bill of review.

Opinion by Justice Garcia