Churchill v. Mayo, 224 S.W.3d 340 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2006, pet. denied).
The trial court rendered a judgment that a surviving spouse had
abandoned her survivor’s homestead. The court styled its judgment as an
“interlocutory” summary judgment. When the surviving spouse appealed,
the court on its own raised the issue of whether the court had
jurisdiction. The court explained that it had the ability to hear only
appeals of final orders under Probate Code § 5(g) and recited the test
set forth by the Texas Supreme Court in Crowson v. Wakeham, 897 S.W.2d
779 (Tex. 1995). The court looked beyond the title of the judgment and
recognized that the trial court’s order was complete, that is, it
determined that (1) the surviving spouse originally had homestead
rights, (2) the surviving spouse subsequently abandoned the homestead,
(3) the surviving spouse had to account for the rental proceeds she
received, and (4) the property was to be sold and the proceeds
distributed to the decedent’s heirs. Accordingly, the court had
jurisdiction to hear the surviving spouse’s appeal.
Moral: Lower court judgments should be carefully captioned so that final
orders are not labeled as being interlocutory.