Kenneth Thomas v. the Park at Sutton Oaks, 04-17-00267-CV

Appellee The Park at Sutton Oaks sued Kenneth Thomas in a forcible detainer action to evict him from an apartment.
Trial court entered judgment (Apr. 17, 2017) awarding possession to Appellee and ordering Thomas to pay $100 in back rent, $1,500 in attorney’s fees, and $116 in court costs. Thomas appealed.
Thomas, proceeding pro se, filed an original appellate brief that was stricken for noncompliance with Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure (Rules 9.4, 9.5, 38.1). The court ordered an amended brief.
Thomas’s amended brief was also defective: it lacked a statement of facts with record references and contained no coherent legal argument or record citations. The court warned him that failures could result in treating the appeal as if no brief were filed.
Thomas did not correct the deficiencies or file a compliant second amended brief. The appellate court declined to perform an independent record review and concluded Thomas waived his appellate complaints for inadequate briefing.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Compliance with briefing rules	Thomas argued various defects and claimed trial-court error (e.g., judge acted as advocate) but provided no record cites or analysis	Park at Sutton Oaks relied on procedural rules requiring proper briefing and record citations	Court held Thomas waived appellate complaints for failing to comply with Rule 38.1 and related briefing requirements
Whether appellate court should independently review record for error	Thomas implicitly asked court to address alleged trial-court misconduct without providing record support	Park argued court should not perform independent review and should require appellant to present arguments and citations	Court refused to independently review the record and declined to advocate for pro se appellant
Sufficiency of appellate issues presented	Thomas listed multiple phrases (e.g., discriminatory, retaliatory eviction) without explanation or record support	Park argued issues were inadequately presented and thus waived	Court treated the listed phrases as inadequately briefed and waived them
Relief from trial judgment	Thomas sought reversal/relief via appeal	Park sought affirmance based on procedural default	Court affirmed trial court judgment (possession, back rent, fees, costs)

Sterner v. Marathon Oil Co., 767 S.W.2d 686 (Tex. 1989) (pro se briefs are construed liberally but must comply with procedural rules)
Valadez v. Avitia, 238 S.W.3d 843 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2007, no pet.) (appellant must properly present issues; appellate court will not independently search record and law)
Rymer v. Lewis, 206 S.W.3d 732 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2006, no pet.) (a judge should not act as an advocate for any party)