Harris County District Judge Ursula Hall on Monday met a deadline handed down by the First Court of Appeals to avoid facing contempt proceedings after a nearly three-and-a-half-year delay in ruling on a motion for summary judgment.
The justices had issued a writ of mandamus Sept. 25, giving Judge Hall until 5 p.m. Oct. 2 to rule on the motions or the court threatened the “immediate initiation of a proceeding before this court for contempt.” Judge Hall sent the court a letter time stamped 3:16 p.m. that she had complied — ruling on the motion to dismiss (that was filed in June 2021) Sept. 26 and on the motion for summary judgment (that was filed in April 2020) earlier that day.
“To my knowledge, there is currently no further action for this court to take concerning the writ,” she wrote. “I thank the court for its time and direction.”
Through staff, Judge Hall did not respond to a request for comment last week. On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Harris County district courts said Judge Hall’s attorney, Chip Babcock of Jackson Walker, would be the point of contact for any questions regarding the matter.
“The reasons for delay in disposition of these motions was due to a bankruptcy which automatically stayed proceedings for a period of time and then the parties’ failure to set the motions for hearing or submission until recently,” Babcock said.
According to court records in the underlying foreclosure dispute between Ronda Shelton and property tax loan company Hunter-Kelsey II, Judge Hall granted Hunter-Kelsey’s motion to dismiss the claims brought by Shelton with prejudice Sept. 26.
Shelton had alleged fraud and fraud in a real estate transaction as well as wrongful foreclosure in the lawsuit she filed May 3, 2019.
Hunter-Kelsey’s motion for summary judgment was denied as moot by Judge Hall Oct. 2.
Judge Hall presides over the 165th District Court and has been chided by the state’s intermediate appellate courts at least 14 times for her delayed rulings since her election in 2016.
A Texas Lawbook review of Texas appellate court records shows several dozen litigants have pursued mandamus relief in the wake of Judge Hall’s prolonged delays in ruling on motions before her.
Some of the most egregious examples of delayed rulings detailed in the petitions for writ of mandamus include a motion for summary judgment pending without ruling for four-and-a-half years. In other cases litigants pointed to a four-year delay in ruling on a motion to compel an independent medical evaluation, a three-year delay in ruling on a motion for a protective order, a 20-month delay in ruling on a motion to dismiss, and many more.
The State Commission on Judicial Conduct issued a public warning to Judge Hall in October 2020 for her failure to “set, hear, decide, and timely sign orders” in a case before her. The warning also gave Judge Hall some homework: two hours of additional legal training.
“In particular, the commission desires that Judge Hall receive this additional education in the area of timely management and administration of the court docket and handling recusal motions,” the warning states.
During her time on the bench, Judge Hall’s performance has drawn criticism from many members of the Houston Bar Association.
In the most recently available judicial evaluation questionnaire conducted by the HBA — in which member attorneys rank the judges they practice before in a variety of ethical and professional categories — at least 50 percent of attorneys said Judge Hall “needs improvement” in every category.
Of the 368 responses tallied for Judge Hall in the 2021 survey, 275 of those attorneys, or 74.7 percent, gave Judge Hall an overall rating of “needs improvement,” the lowest ranking of any civil district judge in Harris County.
The worst category for Judge Hall was “rules decisively and timely,” where 77.2 percent of attorneys cast a vote that she “needs improvement,” which was also the lowest ranking of any civil district judge in Harris County.
The case number is 01-23-00276-CV.
Update: This story has been updated with comment from Judge Hall’s attorney.