## Facts

- John Bible and his spouse divorced in Texas district court.
- The divorce judgment ordered Bible to execute a deed conveying specified real property within ten days.
- Bible did not execute the deed within the ten-day period and instead perfected an appeal from the divorce judgment.
- After the deadline passed, the district court issued an order directing Bible to appear and show cause why he should not be held in contempt for failing to comply.
- Bible filed a written response to the show-cause order but did not appear at the contempt hearing.
- The trial judge found Bible in contempt and ordered him confined in jail until he complied by executing the deed.
- While confined, Bible sought release through an original habeas corpus proceeding in the Texas Court of Civil Appeals (Corpus Christi), asserting the contempt commitment was unlawful.

## Issues

1. Whether a divorce court may enforce, by contempt incarceration, a property-division provision requiring a party to execute a deed conveying real property.
2. Whether a contempt judgment and commitment based on a non-contempt-enforceable order is void and subject to habeas corpus relief.
3. What effect, if any, Bible’s perfected appeal from the divorce judgment had on the trial court’s use of contempt to compel execution of the deed.

## Decision

- The court granted habeas corpus relief.
- The court held the contempt judgment and commitment order void because the underlying divorce decree’s property-transfer directive was not enforceable by contempt imprisonment.
- The court ordered Bible discharged from custody.

## Legal Principles

- In a contempt habeas corpus proceeding, the reviewing court determines whether the contempt order is void (for lack of power to render it), not whether it was merely mistaken.
- A contempt commitment is void when it is based on an underlying order the trial court had no authority to enforce through contempt incarceration.
- Divorce decrees that adjudicate property rights (including provisions that function as a means to transfer title) generally must be enforced through judgment-enforcement remedies, not confinement, when the obligation is essentially to effect a property division rather than comply with a support duty.
- A pending appeal limits the trial court’s ability to use coercive confinement to force compliance with the very decree under appellate review, particularly where the decree provision at issue is not one Texas law permits to be enforced by contempt.

## Conclusion

Ex Parte Bible ordered habeas relief because the trial court jailed Bible to coerce his execution of a deed required by a divorce property-division judgment; the appellate court ruled that this type of property-transfer directive was not enforceable by contempt incarceration (especially while the divorce decree was on appeal), making the contempt judgment and commitment void and requiring Bible’s release.


Ex Parte Bible, 596 S.W.2d 207 (1980)