Family fights over real estate are some of the hardest cases we see. A parent dies, one child ends up with the land, and everyone else is left wondering how that happened. The suspicion is real and sometimes it is justified. But suspecting you were cheated and proving it in court are two very different things, and Texas procedure does not bend for grief or for a compelling family story.
That gap gets wider on appeal. An appellate court does not retry the dispute. It reviews the trial court’s ruling, and it only reviews what the appellant actually puts in front of it. So what happens when an heir is convinced her sister and the family trustee conspired to sell the family property out from under her, but she handles the case herself and files a brief the court cannot follow?
The San Antonio Court of Appeals answered that question in Garza v. Hourigan, No. 04-24-00739-CV (Tex. App.—San Antonio June 17, 2026, no pet. h.) (mem. op.). The court never reached the merits of who owned the property. It affirmed because the appellant’s brief did not comply with the appellate rules and because she failed to attack every ground that supported the judgment. This case is worth reading for anyone thinking about handling a family property fight alone.
Facts & Procedural History
The fight was over a one-fifth interest in real property that had belonged to the parties’ mother. The property ended up in the Osbaldo A. Saenz Sr. and Maria Estela G. Saenz Trust. Esther A. Saenz Salmon was the trustee at the time, and she sold the property to Claudia R. Saenz Hourigan. Herlinda S. Garza, who shares a mother with Hourigan, got nothing.
Garza and her husband, Homero A. Saenz, sued in the 381st Judicial District Court in Starr County, Cause No. DC-23-419. They filed it themselves, without a lawyer. Their petition pleaded a trespass to try title claim — the statutory method for determining title to real property in Texas under Section 22.001 of the Texas Property Code — and, alternatively, claimed the property by adverse possession.
Hourigan answered that she was a bona fide purchaser. Then she counterpunched. She filed a counterclaim under Chapter 12 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, alleging that Garza and her husband had filed a fraudulent lien against the property. Chapter 12 is not a minor statute. Section 12.002 makes it unlawful to file a document a person knows is a fraudulent lien or claim against real property with intent to cause another financial injury, and Section 12.006 requires the court to award a prevailing plaintiff court costs, attorney’s fees, and related expenses. Hourigan also sought a declaratory judgment, removal of the lien, an injunction, and attorney’s fees, and she later added a slander of title claim and her own adverse possession claim.
Both sides moved for summary judgment. Garza and her husband filed a no-evidence motion. Hourigan filed a cross-motion for traditional summary judgment arguing she owned the property because she bought it from the trust, and the trust owned it either through an inter vivos transfer during the mother’s lifetime or through adverse possession. Two separate theories. Either one, standing alone, would get her there.
At the hearing, Garza and her husband appeared pro se. Hourigan and the former trustee each had counsel. The trial court denied the no-evidence motion, granted Hourigan’s traditional motion, declared Hourigan the “rightful owner,” found that Garza and her husband owned no interest in the property, and ordered that they “shall take nothing against Defendants.” The court awarded costs and attorney’s fees and set post-judgment interest at 8.5% per annum. Critically, the trial court did not say which of Hourigan’s two theories it relied on.
Garza appealed, again without a lawyer. Her husband did not appeal. That set up the real question in the case: not who owned the land, but whether Garza gave the appellate court anything it could act on.
What Does Representing Yourself Actually Mean in Texas?
To understand why this appeal failed, you first have to understand what Texas courts expect from a person who represents herself. The rule is short and it is not forgiving. The Texas Supreme Court has said there “cannot be two sets of procedural rules, one for litigants with counsel and the other for litigants representing themselves.” Li v. Pemberton Park Cmty. Ass’n, 631 S.W.3d 701, 705 (Tex. 2021) (quoting Mansfield State Bank v. Cohn, 573 S.W.2d 181, 184-85 (Tex. 1978)). A person who files her own case is held to the same rules of civil procedure and the same rules of appellate procedure that bind a licensed attorney.
That does not mean courts are hostile to pro se litigants. Texas courts are told to “review and evaluate pro se pleadings with liberality and patience,” and the supreme court has instructed appellate courts to “reach the merits of an appeal whenever reasonably possible,” warning that “disposing of appeals for harmless procedural defects is disfavored.” Horton v. Stovall, 591 S.W.3d 567, 570 (Tex. 2019). Courts can and do give unrepresented parties extra time and a second chance to refile. What a court cannot do is build the argument for you or go digging through the record to find facts that might support your side.
The specific rule that decided this case is Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 38.1. It lists what an appellant’s brief must contain: an identity of parties and counsel, a table of contents, an index of authorities, a statement of the case, a concise statement of the issues presented, a statement of facts with record references, a summary of the argument, a clear argument with citations to authority and to the record, and an appendix with the trial court’s judgment. As the court put it, “The Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure require adequate briefing.” ERI Consulting Eng’rs, Inc. v. Swinnea, 318 S.W.3d 867, 880 (Tex. 2010).
Each of those pieces does a job. The statement of issues tells the court what ruling you say is wrong. The statement of facts with record references shows the court where in the record to look. The argument explains why the law requires a different result. Strip any one of them out and the court is guessing. Strip all of them out and there is nothing to review.
How the Court Analyzed the Appeal
The court gave Garza two chances. She filed her brief on May 5, 2025. In a May 13, 2025 order, the court explained that the brief violated Rule 38.1 because it was missing an identity of parties and counsel, a table of contents, an index of authorities, a statement of the case, a statement of issues, a statement of facts with record references, a summary of the argument, a proper legal argument with citations, and an appendix containing the judgment. The court struck the brief and ordered her to file an amended one.
She filed an amended brief on June 25, 2025. In a July 1, 2025 order, the court noted that the amended brief still lacked a statement of facts with record references and a proper legal argument citing the record. This time the court let it stand — it directed the clerk to accept the brief as filed — but it warned Garza that the submission panel might find she had waived her issues. That warning is what came true.
Reading the amended brief as liberally as the law allows, the court said it “cannot glean a coherent argument relating to the trial court’s granting of summary judgment.” The allegations in the brief were serious. Garza claimed Hourigan “associated” with the trustee with “intent to deprive her siblings of their heirship of the subject properties and funds by fraudulently stating that subject property belonged to the Trust.” She claimed Hourigan “convinced [the trustee] with a large amount of money to convey the subject property” to herself. She claimed the trustee breached her fiduciary duties and conspired with Hourigan.
Those are exactly the kinds of claims that can win a trust case. The problem is where they showed up. As the court pointed out, “Garza’s petition alleged no claims for fraud, conspiracy, or breach of fiduciary duties.” She raised them for the first time on appeal. An appeal reviews what the trial court did with the claims that were actually before it. New theories raised for the first time in an appellate brief have nothing to attach to. And nowhere did the brief explain how any of these allegations connected to the ruling being appealed.
That put the case squarely inside a line of cases the court has applied before. In Canton-Carter v. Baylor College of Medicine, 271 S.W.3d 928, 931-32 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2008, no pet.), the appellant waived her complaints because her brief was “a series of disjointed factual assertions and cryptic complaints.” And in Rubsamen v. Wackman, 322 S.W.3d 745, 746 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2010, no pet.), our own El Paso court put the burden where it belongs: it is on the appellant “to discuss [her] assertions of error, and we have no duty—or even right—to perform an independent review of the record and applicable law to determine whether there was error.” The El Paso court added that appellate judges are not “required to sift through the record in search of facts supporting a party’s position.” The court held Garza waived her appellate complaints and presented nothing for review.
Then the court added a second, independent reason the appeal failed — and this one matters even for litigants who do hire lawyers. Remember that Hourigan won on two alternative theories, and the trial court never said which one it picked. Under Britton v. Texas Department of Criminal Justice, 95 S.W.3d 676, 681 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2002, no pet.), when an “independent ground fully supports the complained-of ruling or judgment,” the appellant has to attack each one. The reasoning is simple: if an unchallenged ground fully supports the judgment, the court “must accept the validity of that unchallenged independent ground,” which makes any error in the challenged ground harmless.
Garza’s brief, read liberally, said nothing about adverse possession. She may have been trying to argue about the trust and the inter vivos transfer, but she never touched Hourigan’s alternative theory. That was fatal. Even if the court had found error in the inter vivos transfer ruling, the adverse possession ground stood unchallenged and independently supported the judgment. The court affirmed.
It is worth pausing on what adverse possession means here, because it is not a technicality. Under Section 16.021 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, adverse possession is “an actual and visible appropriation of real property, commenced and continued under a claim of right that is inconsistent with and is hostile to the claim of another person.” Depending on the facts, someone who cultivates, uses, or enjoys property can cut off a competing claim in three, five, or ten years. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §§ 16.024-.026. In other words, the unchallenged ground in this case was a real basis for ownership, not a throwaway. Ignoring it ended the appeal.
Why Trust Property Fights Catch Heirs Off Guard
The underlying dispute here comes up constantly, and it is worth understanding even though the court never resolved it. An inter vivos transfer is a transfer made during the owner’s lifetime, as opposed to one that takes effect at death through a will or by intestacy. When a parent deeds real estate into a trust while she is alive, the trust owns it. That property does not become part of her probate estate. It does not pass under her will. And unless the trust says otherwise, the trustee can manage or sell it under the terms of the trust.
That is why these cases blindside people. Children often do not know a parent moved property into a trust years before death. They have never read the trust. They do not know what powers the trustee has. So when the trustee sells the property — especially to one of the kids — the rest of the family reads it as a theft of their inheritance.
Sometimes it is. Whether there is a real claim turns on the terms of the trust, the scope of the trustee’s authority, whether the trustee met her fiduciary duties, and whether the buyer purchased in good faith. Those are provable things. But they have to be pleaded as claims in the trial court, backed with evidence, and preserved. They cannot be introduced as accusations in an appellate brief after the trial court has already ruled.
The Takeaway
Garza is not a ruling that Garza was wrong about her family’s property. The court never decided that. It is a ruling that she never gave the court a reason to disagree with the trial judge — and in appellate practice, that difference is everything.
Three practical points come out of this case. First, the claims you want to win on have to be in your petition. Fraud, conspiracy, and breach of fiduciary duty are powerful claims in a trust dispute, but raising them for the first time on appeal accomplishes nothing. Second, when a summary judgment order does not state its grounds, you have to attack every ground the movant argued. Miss one and the judgment stands no matter how strong your argument is on the others. Third, courts will give a pro se litigant patience and extra chances, but they will not write the brief. Garza got two orders explaining exactly what was missing and an express warning that she risked waiver.
If you believe a trustee and a sibling moved family property in a way that cut you out, the place to fight is the trial court, with claims that are actually pleaded and evidence that is actually in the record. By the time you reach the court of appeals, the record is closed. Get help before that door shuts.
Our El Paso Probate Attorneys provide a full range of probate services to our clients, including helping with disputes over property transferred into a family trust and claims against trustees who sell estate property. Affordable rates, fixed fees, and payment plans are available. We provide step-by-step instructions, guidance, checklists, and more for completing the probate process. We have years of combined experience that we can use to support and guide you with probate and estate matters. Call us today for a FREE consultation.
Disclaimer
The content of this website is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. The information presented may not apply to your situation and should not be acted upon without consulting a qualified probate attorney. We encourage you to seek the advice of a competent attorney with any legal questions you may have.
