Christopher Omone Umassor v. Bank of America, N.A.Christopher Omone Umassor v. Bank of America, N.A.
Appellee Bank of America, N.A. filed a debt collection case against Appellant Christopher Omone Umassor, and the justice court entered a judgment of $12,959.33 against him. He appealed the case to the county court at law. He then filed a motion to compel arbitration and an amended motion to compel arbitration, but there is no indication he set either motion for a hearing or submission. The county court signed an order of dismissal for want of prosecution on October 22, 2025. A day later, Umassor filed a motion to reinstate the case and
While the motion was pending, Umassor filed a notice of appeal on November 10, 2025. He stated that he was appealing the county court‘s order of dismissal and also “files this Notice of Appeal to preserve his right to appellate review of the dismissal and the trial court‘s failure to hear and rule upon his timely filed Motion to Compel Arbitration and Motion to Vacate/Reconsider.” The county court considered Umassor‘s motion, granted the motion on December 9, 2025, vacated the dismissal, and reinstated the case on the court‘s docket. The case later proceeded to a non-jury trial, and the court signed a final judgment in Bank of America‘s favor.
Because the county court vacated its dismissal order, Umassor‘s appeal from the order of dismissal is moot. “The mootness doctrine—a constitutional limitation founded in the separation of powers between the governmental branches—prohibits courts from issuing advisory opinions.” Elec. Reliability Council of Tex., Inc. v. Panda Power Generation Infrastructure Fund, LLC, 619 S.W.3d 628, 634 (Tex. 2021). A case becomes moot when the court can no longer grant the requested relief or otherwise affect the parties’ rights or interests. Id. at 634-35. If a case is moot, the court must dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction. Heckman v. Williamson Cnty., 369 S.W.3d 137, 162 (Tex. 2012). Here, the order Umassor appealed has been vacated by the trial court and is no longer in effect, so there is no relief we can grant. Therefore, Umassor‘s appeal of the dismissal order is moot.
To the extent Umassor is attempting to appeal the trial court‘s final judgment, his notice of appeal did not state as much, as required by
Accordingly, a party may not appeal a different order than the one he identified in his notice of appeal.1 See
We note that Bank of America raised the above discussed jurisdictional issues in its brief, but Umassor did not address mootness except to say that Bank of America‘s argument that his appeal from the dismissal order is moot fails. He also did not address Bank of America‘s contention that he may not appeal the final judgment when he specifically stated in his notice of appeal that he is appealing the trial court‘s order of dismissal. Thus, Umassor had the opportunity to demonstrate grounds for continuing the appeal but failed to do so.
We order Umassor‘s appeal dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
/s/ Katy Boatman
Justice
Panel consists of Chief Justice Christopher and Justices McLaughlin and Boatman.