Full Opinion

In the Court of Appeals Second Appellate District of Texas at Fort Worth ___________________________ No. 02-25-00648-CV ___________________________ WALLY YAMMINE, Appellant V. PROPEL FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC, AS AGENT AND ATTORNEY IN FACT FOR PROPEL FUNDING NATIONAL 1, LLC; AND HK REO, LLC, Appellees On Appeal from the 342nd District Court Tarrant County, Texas Trial Court No. 342-353434-24 Before Sudderth, C.J.; Womack and Walker, JJ. Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Sudderth MEMORANDUM OPINION Appellant Wally Yammine filed a Petition for Bill of Review1 against various defendants, all of whom were nonsuited except for Appellees Propel Financial Services, LLC, as Agent and Attorney in Fact for Propel Funding National 1, LLC, and HK REO, LLC (collectively, Appellees). Appellees eventually responded by way of a combined Answer and Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction, Motion to Dismiss for Failure to Tender, Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim, and Motion for Sanctions. The Motions to Dismiss raised legal challenges to the merits of Yammine’s claims, but they neither cited to nor invoked any procedural vehicle that would authorize dismissal of Yammine’s suit. After submission without a hearing, the trial court signed an order granting Appellees’ combined Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction, Motion to Dismiss for Failure to Tender, and Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim. Yammine appealed, raising six issues,2 all complaining of the trial court’s dismissal of his lawsuit. For the reasons stated below, we reverse. 1 As we explained in Cannon v. Cannon, a bill of review is a direct attack on a prior judgment. No. 02-21-00404-CV, 2023 WL 1859881 at *3 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2023, no pet.) (mem. op.). If a petitioner did not participate in the trial of the underlying case, to prevail on his bill of review, he must, among other things, plead and prove a meritorious defense to the underlying cause of action. Id. (first citing Caldwell v. Barnes, 154 S.W.3d 93, 96 (Tex. 2004); and then citing Baker v. Goldsmith, 582 S.W.2d 404, 406– 408 (Tex. 1979)). If a petitioner did participate in the trial, the petitioner is not required to plead and prove a meritorious defense, but, instead, he is required to plead and prove that he has a meritorious ground of appeal. Id. 2 We need only address issue four, as it is dispositive of this appeal. 2 In his fourth issue, Yammine complains of various “procedural defects” that he contends barred the trial court from granting Appellees’ “Rule 91a” motion to dismiss, and, in their brief, Appellees take no issue with Yammine’s characterization of the trial court’s order as a Rule 91a dismissal. But the problem with such characterization—and the most glaring procedural defect in the so-called Rule 91a dismissal process below— is that no Rule 91a motion to dismiss appears in the record. This spawns the question: if not under Rule 91a, then under what authority did the trial court act? For, absent a Rule 91a motion—or some other motion based on a statute or rule authorizing dismissal3—the trial court had no authority to dismiss the 3 Appellees filed no other motion that would have properly invoked the trial court’s authority to dismiss Yammine’s case on the merits. For example, there was no motion to dismiss for want of prosecution, no plea to the jurisdiction, no special exceptions, and no Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 13.001 motion to strike Yammine’s pleadings as frivolous. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 13.001 (providing dismissal as a remedy for frivolous or malicious filings); Tex. R. Civ. P. 85 (authorizing pleas to the jurisdiction to be filed with an original answer), 91 (providing for special exceptions to be filed in response to pleadings), 165a (authorizing dismissal for want of prosecution). Alternatively, the legal arguments raised in Appellees’ Motions to Dismiss could have formed the basis of a motion for summary judgment, but no such motion was filed. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 166a(h) (authorizing a trial court to summarily adjudicate a case when there is no genuine issue of fact and the case should be decided as a matter of law). And, as we will discuss in more detail below, Appellees filed no pretrial motion asking that Yammine be required to show prima facie proof of a meritorious defense or, alternatively, a meritorious appeal, one of which, depending on whether Yammine participated in the trial of the underlying lawsuit, was a required element to support his petition for bill of review. Baker, 582 S.W.2d at 409 (authorizing a trial court to dismiss a bill of review if, after following an authorized pretrial procedure, a petitioner fails to make a prima facie showing of a meritorious defense); Cannon, 2023 WL 1859881 at *3 (discussing that, for a bill-of-review petitioner who participated in the underlying trial, the prima facie showing is for a meritorious appeal, not a meritorious defense). 3 lawsuit. See State v. Johnson, 821 S.W.2d 609, 612–14 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991) (citing Pope v. Ferguson, 445 S.W.2d 950 (Tex. 1969) (orig. proceeding), a Texas Supreme Court case; explaining that a trial court’s authority to take a particular action is dependent on a constitutional provision, statute, or common law and that absent such authority a trial court cannot take that action; and holding that because there was no established principle of law authorizing a court to dismiss a criminal case under the circumstances presented, the court exceeded its authority in doing so). We broadly construe Yammine’s argument that the process was “procedurally defective from filing through ruling” to include a complaint about this most fundamental defect. See Tex. R. App. P. 38.9. It is a basic, long-standing principle in Texas that a trial court possesses no general authority to dismiss a case. Messner v. Giddings, 65 Tex. 301, 309 (Tex. 1886) (stating that a trial court has “only such power as the constitution g[i]ve[s] it,” and that “[t]here is no such thing as the inherent power of a court, if, by that, be meant a power which [the] court may exercise without a law authorizing it”). With only one exception that is not applicable here,4 the power to dismiss a case is derived only from an A trial court has inherent authority to dismiss a lawsuit for want of prosecution, 4 but even then, its discretion to do so is restricted and subject to review. Bevil v. Johnson, 307 S.W.2d 85, 87 (Tex. 1957) (explaining that, while a trial court—even in the absence of statutory authority—has the right to dismiss a suit for want of prosecution, such discretion is “not . . . unbridled,” and it is “subject to review”). The so-called “inherent” authority of a trial court to dismiss for want of prosecution is governed by caselaw addressing notice and due process concerns. See generally Villarreal v. San Antonio 4 established principle of law, with each source carrying its own distinct procedural requirements, standards of review, and consequences. Id.; see Baker, 582 S.W.2d at 408– 409 (setting forth procedures to follow before a trial court may dismiss a petitioner’s bill of review for failure to make a prima facie showing of meritorious grounds). To empower a trial court to dismiss a case, some established legal principle must authorize it and the rules related to that principle must be followed. See, e.g., Gaskill v. VHS San Antonio Partners, 456 S.W.3d 234, 238 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2014, pet. denied) (reversing the trial court’s dismissal of a case under Rule 91a for failure to comply with applicable procedures and explaining that “[b]ecause dismissal on the pleadings is a harsh remedy, we will strictly construe Rule 91a’s notice provision”); see also Ramsey v. State, 249 S.W.3d 568, 579 (Tex. App.—Waco 2008, no pet.) (holding that “the trial court erred when it summarily denied [a] bill-of-review petition for failure to allege extrinsic fraud or official mistake because that issue was not raised by special exception or other proper motion”); see also Johnson, 821 S.W.2d at 612; cf. Cannon, 2023 WL 1859881, at *6 (holding that a pretrial hearing is suggested but not required and when petitioner’s bill of review was attacked by special exception and the hearing was noticed as a “final hearing” on the bill of review, petitioner was on notice that he “had to prove his case”). Truck & Equip., 994 S.W.2d 628, 630–33 (Tex. 1999). Texas law does not recognize the “inherent authority” of a trial court to dismiss a case in any other context. 5 Here, Appellees filed in the trial court three Motions to Dismiss that were long on legal authority for their contentions that Yammine’s claims lacked merit or were barred5 but short on any reference to any authority for the proposition that they were entitled to dismissal, as opposed to a judgment in their favor following a trial on the merits.6 In essence, Appellees took an anything-goes approach to dismissal without reference to any applicable rule or statute that would provide the mechanism by which the lawsuit could be dismissed. Then, inexplicably, the trial court took the bait and summarily dismissed Yammine’s lawsuit with no apparent authority to do so.7 This cannot stand. Perhaps our sister court said it best when it observed that there are “mechanisms in place that allow a trial judge to dispose of a case on the merits before it is submitted to the trier of fact,” but, “absen[t] . . . some extraordinary reason to depart from those Appellees provided several legal principles supporting their argument that 5 Yammine could not prevail on his bill of review, and they reiterate some of these arguments on appeal. We do not reach the merits of their arguments because Appellees did not invoke at the trial court level any authority to dismiss Yammine’s lawsuit based on these defenses, nor do they point to any authority in their brief on appeal. 6 In their motion, Appellees referenced federal cases that permit dismissal for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), but, of course, no such rule appears in the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. 7 To the extent that the trial court relied upon authority conferred under Baker, the trial court provided Yammine neither with any notice of its intent to invoke this authority nor with any opportunity for Yammine to meet his obligations to overcome this challenge by providing prima facie proof on the element of meritorious defense or meritorious appeal. See Baker, 582 S.W.2d at 408–09; Cannon, 2023 WL 1859881, at *3. 6 procedures,” trial courts do not have the power to “create their own ad hoc procedures.” Porras v Jefferson, 409 S.W.3d 804, 808 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2013, no pet.). This is not to say that in the end the trial court could not determine that Yammine’s lawsuit lacks merit and should be dismissed pursuant to some authority that permits dismissal under the circumstances. But trial courts are not allowed to take shortcuts in getting there. As explained above, proper authority must be invoked to empower a trial court to dismiss a lawsuit. Because no authority was invoked here, the trial court abused its discretion by granting Appellees’ Motions to Dismiss. We reverse the trial court’s dismissal order and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings. /s/ Bonnie Sudderth Bonnie Sudderth Chief Justice Delivered: August 27, 2026 7