TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN
NO. 03-26-00362-CV
Dominique AC Reed, Appellant
v.
Carl Lee Hill, Appellee
FROM THE 146TH DISTRICT COURT OF BELL COUNTY
NO. 23DFAM337543, THE HONORABLE MIKE RUSSELL, JUDGE PRESIDING
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appellant Dominique AC Reed filed a notice of appeal challenging the trial
court’s “Order to Release Funds to Petitioner,” which ordered the release of $10,493.33, together
with 90% of the accrued interest, from the trial court’s registry to appellee Carl Lee Hill, and
which also denied Reed’s emergency motion. Upon initial review, the Clerk of this Court sent
Reed a letter informing her that this Court appears to lack jurisdiction over the appeal because
the January 6, 2026 “Order to Release Funds to Petitioner” in the clerk’s record does not appear
to be a final and appealable judgment, and our jurisdiction is limited to appeals in which there
exists a final or appealable judgment or order. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 51.012;
Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191, 195 (Tex. 2001) (explaining that appeal generally
may only be taken from final judgment that disposes of all pending parties and claims in record
unless statute provides for interlocutory appeal).
The Clerk further informed Reed that once the trial court loses plenary power
after a final judgment such as the 2024 divorce decree, or a mandate from any appeal issues, “the
trial court does not have the authority to make a new order that is inconsistent with the original
judgment.” Beeler v. Fuqua, No. 09-07-358CV, 2007 WL 2962799, at *1 (Tex. App.—
Beaumont Oct. 11, 2007, pet. denied) (mem. op.). In this case, the trial court’s order to pay the
funds in the court’s registry appears to be “nothing more than the satisfaction of the trial court’s
ministerial duty to give effect to the mandate.” Id. Because “[n]o appeal lies from a
post-judgment order that is within the trial court’s enforcement powers, not inconsistent with the
original judgment, and does not materially change the substantive portions of the judgment,” it
appears that the trial court’s order is not an appealable order. Id.
The Clerk requested a response from Reed explaining any basis that exists for this
Court’s jurisdiction. Reed filed a response. 1 In her response, she contends that the trial court’s
January 6, 2026 order is reviewable on appeal because “[i]t was the first order resolving the
parties’ competing claims to actual funds that became available in the trial court’s registry after
sale of the marital residence.” She further asserts that the trial court “had expressly reserved
reimbursement, expenses, attorney’s fees, and distribution of funds for a later proceeding when
money reached the registry.” Reed relies on Alexander Dubose Jefferson & Townsend LLP
v. Chevron Phillips Chem. Co., L.P., 540 S.W.3d 577, 587-88 (Tex. 2018), asserting that the trial
court’s release order here is comparable to the order in Alexander Dubose that the Texas
1 The Court twice extended Reed’s deadline to file her response. Her response was filed two days after the extended deadline, but Reed moved for leave to file her response out of time under cover of her response. The Court grants Reed’s motion for leave to file her response out of time.
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Supreme Court determined was final and appealable because it “was the first determination of
competing substantive ownership rights” to the funds pending in the court’s registry. Id. at 588.
We disagree. In Alexander Dubose, the issue before the court was whether
Alexander Dubose’s failure to timely appeal a turnover order deprived the court of appeals of
jurisdiction. Id. at 578. The court held that “a turnover order is not a final, appealable judgment
when it merely orders funds subject to an as-yet-unadjudicated ownership dispute into the court's
registry.” Id. The lawsuit that led to the post-judgment turnover proceeding to enforce a final
monetary judgment was a complex suit involving multiple claims and parties. Id. The turnover
order at issue stated that it was without prejudice to the right of two of the parties to seek the
release of the funds “to be held initially in the Court’s Registry” and it was silent as to one
party’s intervention and request for a declaration and the other party’s motion to strike. Id. at
579. The latter party later filed a motion for final judgment on the other party’s intervention and
a motion to enforce the turnover order and have the funds released to it because the intervening
party had not appealed the turnover order. Id. at 580. The trial court subsequently signed a
release order denying the intervening party’s motion to release the registry funds, ordering the
turnover order enforced and funds released to the other party, and declaring that the order is a
final judgment and “as such is appealable.” Id. On appeal from that order, the court of appeals
dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction, holding that the intervening party should have
appealed the turnover order, not the release order, because the turnover order was the final,
appealable judgment. Id.
In analyzing the finality issue, the Texas Supreme Court explained that a trial
court’s post-judgment enforcement power, in contrast with plenary power, is of uncertain
duration because it lasts until the judgment is satisfied. Id. at 581. Accordingly, “the finality of
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enforcement orders, including turnover orders, can become uncertain,” id., and “what qualifies as
‘final’ in the turnover context necessarily diverges from the more traditional concept of finality,”
id. at 582. The court analyzed whether the trial court had ever ruled upon the merits of the
intervening party’s claims to the disputed funds before it analyzed the finality of the turnover
order. See id. at 582-86. It concluded that the trial court had not decided the party’s substantive
claims to the disputed funds until the issuance of the release order. Id. at 586.
The court then analyzed whether the provision of the turnover order directing
funds into the registry could function as a mandatory injunction, and thus a final, appealable
judgment when the trial court had never determined the intervening party’s substantive
ownership rights to the funds. Id. The court determined that the intervening party’s motion to
release the funds, which “simultaneously requested a final conclusion as to its pending,
competing claims and an order conclusively establishing entitlement to the funds pending in the
court’s registry,” sought relief that the trial court had not yet ruled upon. Id. at 588. Because the
release order “was the first order that spoke to the merits of [the intervening party’s] pending and
competing ownership claim,” the court concluded that it was more than an order merely
affirming the turnover order. Id. Instead, the court held that the release order “was the first
determination of competing substantive ownership rights and was the final, appealable
judgment.” Id.
In contrast, here, the divorce decree (which Reed did not appeal) determined the
merits of the parties’ substantive ownership rights to the funds. The decree established that the
property at issue was to be sold, “under terms and conditions determined by a court-appointed
receiver” with the party at fault for the necessity of appointing a receiver to be ordered “to pay
all fees associated with the appointment of the receiver, including attorney’s fees and court
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costs” with the money to be taken from the proceeds from the sale of the home. Reed was
awarded the exclusive right to the use and possession of the home until December 6, 2023, but
was ordered to move out on or before six months after December 6, 2023. Hill was ordered to
make the payments of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance on the property during the
pendency of the sale, and “[a]ll reasonable repairs necessary to keep the property in its present
condition.” The decree stated,
The net sales proceeds (defined as the gross sales price less cost of sale and full
payment of any mortgage indebtedness or liens on the property) shall be
distributed as follows:
1. Carl Hill shall be reimbursed for one-half of each month the mortgage is paid
after December 6, 2023.
2. Carl Hill shall be reimbursed for any reasonable repairs made to the home
prior to the sale of the home.
3. Any reimbursement, if necessary, in accordance with an appraisal or costs
associated with the appointment of a receiver in accordance with any further
Order of this Court, as necessary.
4. The remaining proceeds shall be split equally between the parties.
Hill filed a petition for enforcement of the property division in September 2024, alleging that
Reed refused to vacate the property and was not cooperating in the sale of the property. Hill also
moved for the appointment of a receiver. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court determined
that “proper grounds exist for the appointment of a receiver.” Reed did not appeal the order
appointing the receiver. In August 2025, the trial court signed an order approving the sale of
the property.
In October and November 2025, Reed filed an emergency motion for partial
distribution of funds from receivership estate, a supplemental motion for partial withdrawal of
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funds from court registry (supplementing her October motion), and a notice of adverse appellate
ruling and renewed request for emergency motion. None of these motions assert that Reed has a
superior right to have the proceeds in the court’s registry awarded to her before Hill is
reimbursed as the decree requires. Instead, Reed’s arguments focus on her need for the funds
and her argument that Hill engaged in unspecified “material misrepresentations and conduct
amounting to unclean hands, which directly contributed to the wrongful dimunition of [Reed’s]
awarded equity.” According to Hill, the trial court held a telephonic hearing on these motions on
November 25, 2025, and denied Reed’s request for relief.
In December 2025, Hill filed a motion to withdraw funds and response to Reed’s
emergency motion. At the hearing, the trial court did not hear evidence related to the merits of
the parties’ “competing substantive ownership rights” to the funds in the registry. See id. The
merits of those ownership rights to the funds had been determined in the decree. The only
evidence that the trial court received was evidence that the receiver deposited the proceeds of the
sale of the property, which amounted to $10,493.33, in the trial court’s registry and that Hill paid
$56,092.18 in mortgage payments between December 2023 and August 2025 (when the court
approved the receiver’s sale of the property), half of which is $28,046.09. The trial court also
took judicial notice of its file, and Hill submitted the divorce decree as an exhibit.
The trial court’s order releasing the funds to Hill is “a post-judgment order that is
within the trial court’s enforcement powers, not inconsistent with the original judgment, and
does not materially change the substantive portions of the judgment.” Beeler, 2007 WL
2962799, at *1. No appeal lies from such an order. Id.
Accordingly, for the reasons explained above, we dismiss the appeal for want of
jurisdiction. See Tex. R. App. P. 42.3(a).
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Gisela D. Triana, Justice
Before Justices Triana, Crump, and Ellis
Dismissed for Want of Jurisdiction
Filed: October 27, 2026
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