On January 9, 2001, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, introduced five bills in the continuing effort to expand the jurisdiction of statutory probate courts and clean up various jurisdictional anomalies.

HB 534 amends Section 25.0022 of the Government Code. This section permits the presiding statutory probate judge to assign a statutory probate judge to hear a matter in a county which does not have a statutory probate court in certain circumstances (the request of the local judge, a vacancy in the court, etc.). HB 534 adds to the power to make transfers of cases under Tex. Prob. Code Secs. 5B and 608 to the jurisdictional toolbox an assigned statutory probate judge brings to the case. Thus, if the judge of the county court at law of Waller County asks that a statutory probate judge be assigned to hear a particular case, the assigned judge will have the power to transfer a case pending in another court which is appertaining to the estate to Waller County, just like a statutory probate judge now can do in his or her home court.

HB 535 amends Section 25.0018 to provide that, instead of entering certain information about visiting county judges in the "minutes" of a court, the clerk shall enter that information in the court's "administrative file," which is defined as "a file kept by the court clerk for the court's administrative orders and assigned a cause number."

HB 536 amends Section 5 of the Probate Code and its guardianship parallel provision, Section 606. The Legislature has been tinkering with Sections 5, 5A and 5B (and parallel provisions 606, 607 and 608) for a couple of decades, and one of these days they are going to get it right. The most significant change proposed by HB 536 (and it is not very significant) is to make the filing of a probate case in a county with a statutory probate court mandatory in that court. Under current Section 5(c), a probate case in a county with a statutory probate court theoretically could be filed in the constitutional county court (in other words, the court of the county judge who presides over the commissioners' court). If HB 536 becomes law, that still will be possible in counties with "regular" county courts at law (not statutory probate courts), but new Section 5(d) will require a probate case to be filed in the statutory probate court (if the county has one), "unless otherwise provided by law." The bill also cleans up a few minor issues, including the procedure for the constitutional county court to transfer a probate case to the county court at law in counties with no statutory probate court.

(Please note: If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please don't worry. Ninety percent of attorneys handling probate matters in Texas don't understand this stuff.)

HB 537 attempts to fix a problem with bill passed in 1999. The 1999 bill permits a statutory probate court to transfer a case to another court in the same county if the statutory probate court ever loses jurisdiction because the case is no longer appertaining or incident to an estate. This could happen, for example, if the court used Section 5B or 608 to transfer to itself a case in which an administrator or guardian is a party (making it appertaining to an estate under Section 5A or 607) and the administrator or guardian is nonsuited or released as a party. At that point, the case would no longer be appertaining to or incident to an estate, so the statutory probate court would lose jurisdiction of it. Unfortunately, the 1999 act limited the court's ability to transfer the case to a court in the SAME COUNTY. Transfers under 5B and 608 often occur with respect to cases from different counties. HB 537 would amend Section 25.00221 of the Government Code to expressly permit the transfer to "the court from which the cause of action was transferred to the statutory probate court under Section 5B or 608." Thus, if HB 534 becomes law, the statutory probate court will be able to send a 5B or 608 case back where it came from.

HB 538 amends Section 25.0022 of the Government Code (as does HB 534, discussed above). HB 538 would permit the statutory probate judge assigned to a case in another county to hear all judicial proceedings in a different county, except the trial on the merits and unless a party objects. Thus, if Judge King of Tarrant County is assigned a case in Brewster County, he could hear all preliminary motions in Tarrant County, unless one of the parties objects, in which case presumably he would have to hear those motions in Brewster County.  [01/10/01].