Periodically, we have forfeiture cases where an answer is filed, but there is no further involvement by the respondent (usually in pro se situations). I've resolved most of these by serving the respondent with a discovery request that includes the pertinent requests for admissions. If I don't get any response, I then file a motion for summary judgment, and have always in the past requested that it be heard by submission, basically just to try to simplify things and not add one more thing to my docket.

One of our judges has now brought up a concern he has regarding the practice of doing that--he feels that the forfeiture statute may entitle respondents to an actual hearing. I'm not positive, but I think this is just based on the title of Art 59.05, "Forfeiture Hearing" (I may just have missed it, but I couldn't find anything else in the statute that seemed "hearing" oriented).

Personally, I don't think there's an issue given that the 59.02(b) explicitly says that, "All cases under this chapter shall proceed to trial in the same manner as in other civil cases." Seems to me that means if you can do something in any other civil case, you can do it in a forfeiture case too. But, I've now run several Westlaw searches and unfortunately haven't come up with anything remotely on point.

Has anyone else here had any experience dealing with this particular issue? Thanks for any input you can provide. I'm posting this on both the civil and criminal boards in an attempt to try to catch everyone, so I apologize for the duplicate--don't bother reading both!

I don't have any squarely on-point authority to offer, but chapter 59 proceedings are civil, and are subject to the Rules of Civil Procedure, including Rule 166A (governing summary judgment). Analyzing that context, the Texas Supreme Court has noted that "[u]nless required by the express language or the context of the particular rule, the term 'hearing' does not necessarily contemplate either a personal appearance before the court or an oral presentation to the court." Martin v. Martin, Martin & Richards, Inc., 989 S.W.2d 357, 359 (Tex. 1998). The court went on to observe that, "since oral testimony cannot be adduced in support of or opposition to a motion for summary judgment, an oral hearing is not mandatory." Id. Perhaps that could provide some analogous support to you, particularly if you're proceeding through the summary judgment route.

That was actually my original point on this, it just sounded kinda moronic when, put on the spot, I said, "Um, well yes, it does say "forfeiture hearing", but I don't really think when they say "hearing" there that they really mean a "HEARING hearing", you know?". I think the idea of the statute is not to mandate an actual trial, but simply to stress that there has to be notice and some type of formal adjudication of the case--we can't just decide to play finders keepers, which has evidently been an issue in the past.

But given all the other stuff I was dealing with today, while it was easy enough to try to look into the concepts of summary judgments and submission on forfeiture cases, that didn't get me anywhere, and I was a bit lost trying to come up with good terms to research what "hearing" really means, so I very much appreciate your help. Hopefully, my problems will all now be solved. Well, okay, ONE of my problems at least!

I seem to recall that in Code Construction is a provision about the meaning of titles to statutes. I think meaningless is their, . . . uh . . ., meaning. But since Scott B. might harass me for failing to do any research, and rightfully so, you might check out Section 311.024 of the Texas Government Code. I think there is a criminal case in the notes, by the way.

The statute heading thing is something that in my dazed, harried state I hadn't even thought about, but that is definitely true. Doing a "word find" search for "hearing" in the BODY of the statute just didn't really produce anything making it sound like an actual hearing was required, with the vaguely arguable exception of one reference to having to turn any goodies held under a replevy bond back over to the State "on the day of hearing of the forfeiture proceedings" (which I still don't think necessarily implies a real hearing). I think we're good. Thank you, thank you, thank you both for your help.