Trial Reset to October 19, 2026: Amended Bill of Review Filed, Ex Parte Motion Withdrawn, Service by Constable Underway

Last updated: August 26, 2026

Published: July 25, 2026  |  Category: Case Update

Tags: Bill of Review, 311th District Court, trial reset, service of process, due process

What Was Filed on July 20, 2026

Three documents were filed together in Cause No. 202592876 in the 311th Judicial District Court of Harris County, Texas. All are public court records. Party names are omitted here; two minor children are involved in the underlying case.

1. First Amended Bill of Review to Set Aside Default Judgment

The amended pleading supersedes the original Bill of Review filed December 12, 2025, and becomes the operative pleading in the case. It seeks to vacate a default Final Order entered August 20, 2024 in the underlying SAPCR, Cause No. 202417675.

That default order appointed the responding party sole managing conservator, restricted the petitioning parent to supervised visitation, and ordered child support of $289.00 per month plus $75.00 per month in cash medical support. The petitioning parent did not appear at the hearing and, according to the pleading, had no knowledge that the case existed until October 16, 2025 — fourteen months after judgment was signed.

The amended pleading is verified and notarized, and it drops the request for ex parte relief that appeared in the original.

2. Notice of Withdrawal of Ex Parte Emergency Motion

The Ex Parte Emergency Motion for Temporary Possession of Children, filed alongside the original Bill of Review on December 12, 2025, has been formally withdrawn. The court never ruled on it.

The notice asks the court to dismiss the motion as withdrawn, and expressly reserves the right to seek temporary orders or emergency relief later by properly noticed motion should circumstances warrant.

3. Motion to Continue Trial Setting

The motion asked the court to continue the trial setting of July 20, 2026 and to reset the case for a later date, on four grounds:

• The Scheduling Order misclassifies the proceeding. The April 20, 2026 Scheduling Order applied the court's standard SAPCR template — referencing "spouses" exchanging inventory and appraisement, requiring mediation, and setting the case for "Trial on the Merits." The parties were never married and there is no inventory to exchange.
• The pending ex parte motion created six months of delay. From December 12, 2025 forward, the motion sat without a ruling. The petitioning parent awaited that ruling before taking further steps, including service.
• The responding party had not been served. Under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 99, the answer deadline would fall at or after July 21, 2026 — the day after the trial setting.
• No discovery had been conducted. None could begin until service and answer were complete.

Why the Ex Parte Withdrawal Unblocks the Case

This is the practical turning point. An unruled emergency motion sat on the docket from December 2025 through July 2026. While it was pending, the case could not sensibly move forward — the filings state that service was held back in anticipation of a ruling that never came.

Withdrawing the motion removes that dependency. The amended pleading seeks no ex parte relief, so there is nothing left for the court to rule on before the case can proceed through ordinary channels: serve the opposing party, receive an answer, conduct discovery, and try the Bill of Review on its merits.

Service by Constable Now Proceeding

With the ex parte motion withdrawn, the Harris County District Clerk has been asked to issue citation under Texas Rules of Civil Procedure 99 and 106. Service is to be effected by constable under Rules 103 and 106(a)(1), at the responding party's last known address. Service is expected to be completed soon.

Once served, the responding party has a minimum of twenty days to file an answer under Rule 99. Discovery follows from there.

New Court Date: October 19, 2026

The July 20, 2026 trial setting has been reset. The case is now set for October 19, 2026.

The continuance motion had asked the court to reset the trial to a date not less than ninety days after an answer is filed, and to issue an amended Scheduling Order appropriate to a Bill of Review rather than a conservatorship trial.

Background: How the Case Reached This Point

The Bill of Review rests on the three elements required by Baker v. Goldsmith, 582 S.W.2d 404, 406 (Tex. 1979): a meritorious defense, prevented by the fraud or wrongful act of the opposing party, unmixed with the petitioner's own fault. The pleading alleges:

• Improper service. Citation in the underlying SAPCR went to an apartment both parties had abandoned in 2013 — eleven years before the case was filed. In a concurrent Habeas Corpus proceeding (Cause No. 202353496), the same opposing party served the petitioning parent at the correct, current address. The petitioning parent appeared at the Habeas trial on June 3, 2024; the opposing party did not, and that case was dismissed for want of prosecution. See Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950).
• Withheld documents. Following an April 7, 2024 arrest during a visitation, personal property was retrieved but legal papers, including service documents, were allegedly withheld. [Correction, August 26, 2026: April 7, 2024 was the booking date. The arrest occurred the evening of April 6, 2024. See Corrections.]
• Counsel's silence. Three emails to opposing counsel in April and May 2024 requesting case documents and mediation went unanswered, and the existence of the SAPCR was never disclosed. See Alexander v. Hagedorn, 226 S.W.2d 996, 1001 (Tex. 1950).
• Post-judgment concealment. Between August 20 and December 27, 2024, the children were brought for unsupervised visits — contrary to the supervised-only order that had been obtained — without disclosing that the order existed. The order was produced in October 2025, fourteen months after it was signed, roughly two weeks after the Domestic Relations Office closed the visitation file.

On the merits, the pleading asserts that the petitioning parent has maintained financial support and health, dental, and life insurance for the children; appears when properly served; completed deferred adjudication and a batterer intervention and prevention program; and raises safety concerns at the children's residence. It also notes that the older child is now 13 and entitled to an in-camera interview under Texas Family Code § 153.009.

The action is timely. A bill of review carries a four-year limitations period under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 16.051.

What Comes Next

• Service by constable on the responding party.
• Answer due a minimum of twenty days after service under Rule 99.
• Discovery, including requests for certified copies of the complete record in Cause No. 202417675 (return of service, pleadings, and the reporter's record from the August 20, 2024 default hearing) and the record in the Habeas proceeding, Cause No. 202353496.
• Trial setting of October 19, 2026.

Why This Matters for Reform

Count the calendar. A default custody judgment was signed in August 2024. The affected parent learned of it in October 2025. As of July 2026 — twenty-three months after judgment — the case is only now reaching service of process on the opposing party.

Most of that delay was not caused by either party. It was caused by an emergency motion that sat undecided for more than six months and a scheduling order that treated an equitable proceeding as a routine conservatorship trial. These are the procedural gaps the SAFE SAPCR Act is designed to close.

The Act's proposed 45-day expedited hearing requirement for bills of review based on improper service would have resolved the threshold question in this case more than a year ago.

Note added 3 August 2026. This post is left as published. At the time of writing the Act was described as requiring a 45-day expedited hearing; the figure in the section-by-section analysis is 60 days, and the summaries elsewhere on the site have been corrected to match. Dated posts are not rewritten after publication — see Corrections.

Previous Case Updates

Each update is preserved at its own permanent address so the procedural history stays intact and citable. The most recent update is always available at safesapcrtx.org/case-update.

• June 22, 2026 — Court notified of case misclassification; ex parte withdrawal and trial reset requested

This update describes filings and procedural events in pending litigation, and party names have been omitted. All referenced documents are public court records available through the Harris County District Clerk. The statements summarized above are allegations contained in filed pleadings. They are contested, no findings have been entered, and nothing here should be read as established fact. This is not legal advice.