SUZANNE MARIE THORNHILL v. WILLIAM SCOTT THORNHILL (2023)

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION

Affirmed in Part, Reversed and Remanded in Part, and Majority Opinion and Concurring and Dissenting Opinion filed April 11, 2023.

I concur in part with this court's judgment and join in the opinion except for the final sentence of the opinion—“We affirm the remainder of the decree.” That suggests that we sua sponte reviewed the remainder of the decree for reversible error, which we did not because appellant did not preserve complaints for appellate review on the remainder and did not bring issues or points of error on appeal on the remainder. I would omit that sentence because we did no such review as the parties did not complain on appeal about the remainder. See Tex. R. App. P. 44.1(b) (error affecting only part of case). I therefore dissent in part to the following sentence in this court's judgment: “We find no error in the remainder of the final decree and order it AFFIRMED.”¹

FOOTNOTES

1.   Notwithstanding this court's sua sponte affirmance on issues or points of error no one argued on appeal, this court's judgment correctly recognizes appellant as the prevailing party in awarding to appellant costs incurred by appellant. Tex. R. App. P. 43.4 (judgment for costs in civil cases).

Charles A. Spain Justice