TEXAS SUPREME COURT VACATES COURT OF APPEALS JUDGEMENT AGAINST PETER ZAVALETTA, FREEDOM COMMUNICATIONS (BROWNSVILLE HERALD), REMANDS CASE

(Ed's. Note: Rather than comment on a subject way beyond our modest legal expertise, we will let the reader peruse through the rationale behind the Texas Supreme Court's decision to vacate the rulings issued by convicted former 404th District Judge Abel Limas against Brownsville attorney and former Brownsville Navigation District Commissioner Peter Zavaletta and the Brownsville Herald. As a result of the Limas indictment, it was disclosed that Limas admitted to taking a bribe in return for rulings for the plaintiffs in the case. Zavaletta has indicated that he will now seek sanctions against the respondents and counsel in the case.)

FREEDOM COMMUNICATIONS, INC., D/B/A THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD AND
VALLEY MORNING STAR, PETITIONER,
v.
JUAN ANTONIO CORONADO, ET AL., RESPONDENTS



This interlocutory appeal is from the denial of a media defendant’s motion for summary judgment regarding claims that it defamed the plaintiffs and invaded their privacy by publishing a political advertisement.
We conclude that neither the court of appeals nor this Court has jurisdiction to consider the merits of the parties’ arguments because the trial court judge accepted a bribe for ruling on the summary-judgment motion, constitutionally disqualifying him from this case and thus making his order void.

We vacate the judgment of the court of appeals and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings.
In 2008 Peter Zavaletta sought election to the position of Cameron County District Attorney.
During the course of his election campaign he advertised in the Brownsville Herald and Valley
Morning Star, two  Freedom Communications, Inc. (Freedom)  newspapers, that the incumbent District Attorney failed to prosecute child abuse cases.  The advertisement included the names of
individuals who were arrested, but not prosecuted, for alleged child abuse. Juan Antonio Coronado,
Francisco Solis Ramirez, Roberto Rivera III, and Ruben Contreras (collectively, Coronado) were
among the persons identified in the advertisement.
They sued Zavaletta, Freedom, and former District Attorney Yolanda DeLeon, contending that the advertisement defamed them and invaded their privacy. Freedom moved for summary judgment on the grounds that the advertisement was accurate, true, and non-actionable under the United States and Texas Constitutions and Texas statutory and common law.
The trial court judge, Abel Limas, denied the motion and Freedom filed an interlocutory appeal.The court of appeals affirmed, with one justice dissenting. Freedom filed a petition for review in this Court and as part of its briefing provided a copy of a plea agreement filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
The agreement shows that after the court of appeals issued its decision, Limas pleaded guilty to federal
racketeering charges. He admitted in the plea that on May 8, 2008, he accepted $8,000 in cash for, in part, making rulings favorable to the plaintiffs in this case, including “denying [Freedom’s] Summary Judgment [motion] on November 26th.”
The plea agreement is not in the appellate record and Coronado urges us not to consider it, arguing that Freedom’s reference to the plea amounts to an impermissible attempt to obtain sanctions against them in this Court. Freedom maintains that the facts contained in the plea agreement are appropriate for judicial notice and it is not seeking sanctions or any other relief based on Limas’s motives in ruling on the summary-judgment motion.
Instead, Freedom argues that we should decide the merits of this appeal, but do so using “close appellate scrutiny” because Limas’s guilty plea suggests hisruling on the summary-judgment motion was not the product of good faith.
An appellate court may take judicial notice of a relevant fact that is “either (1) generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (2) capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.”
Here, Freedom has provided a copy of Limas’s plea agreement in federal district court and urges us to take judicial notice of the facts in the agreement.
Freedom’s request leads us to question whether we have jurisdiction to decide this appeal. That is because appellate courts do not have jurisdiction to address the merits of appeals from void orders or judgments; rather, they have jurisdiction only to determine that the order or judgment underlying the appeal is void and make appropriate orders based on that determination.
If Limas’s order is void, then the court of appeals did not have authority to consider the merits of Freedom’s appeal from the order denying summary judgment, and neither do we. In these circumstances the facts in Limas’s plea agreement are relevant, it is appropriate for us to take judicial notice of them, and we do so.
The facts in the plea agreement show that Limas had an interest — an illegal interest, no less — in this case because he obtained a pecuniary gain as a direct result of his rulings, including his order denying Freedom’s summary-judgment motion.
Therefore, he was disqualified and his discretionary ruling on the summary-judgment motion was void. Because the order on which Freedom bases its appeal is void, we cannot address the merits of the appeal and the court of appeals did not have authority to do so either — even though it had no way of knowing so.
Accordingly, without hearing oral argument, we vacate the court of appeals’ judgment and
opinion. We remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings.
OPINION DELIVERED: June 22, 2012