The director of our local Crisis Center emailed and faxed me this morning about HB 260, which would add Sec. 81.009 to the Family Code, which would make a protective order explicitly appealable.

Frankly, I have always considered that a protective order that dealt with all issues before the court would be final and appealable, and I believe that several of the Courts of Appeals have held that way as well. This new provision would make any protective order appealable.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I think that I am getting this information too late to do anything about it; the Senate Jurisprudence Committee passed the House version out of committee without any amendments.

There had been some question about that, since the trial court maintained the ability to modify the order at any time. It is nice to have a clear declaration one way or the other in the statute to settle that issue.