Does Paying a Judgment Moot the Appeal?
A lawyer acquaintance called today to ask whether his client (which had suffered a significant money judgment) could mitigate accrual of interest by paying the judgment without rendering its anticipated appeal moot. The Texas Supreme Court laid out the basic procedure for addressing this situation in Marshall v. Housing Authority of City of San Antonio, 198 S.W.3d 782, 787 (Tex. 2006):
Usually, when a judgment debtor voluntarily satisfies the judgment, the case becomes moot and the debtor waives any right to appeal. The rule is intended to prevent a party who voluntarily satisfies a judgment from later changing his or her mind and appealing. We have held, however, that payment of a judgment will not moot an appeal from that judgment if the judgment debtor timely and clearly expresses an intent to exercise the right of appeal and if appellate relief is not futile (citations omitted).
Study this decision and the cases it cites closely if you are facing a situation in which your client would like to pay a judgment to stop the interest clock from running, yet wants to pursue an appeal from that judgment. If handled properly in the right case, you maybe able to do both without giving up your client's appellate rights.
