In the Matter of the Marriage of Caroline Brookshire and Trenton Brookshire and in the Interest of R.L.B., D.B.B. and H.A.B., Children, 12-24-00322-CV, June 03, 2026.
On appeal from County Court at Law, Smith County, Texas
Synopsis
Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 34.6(c)’s incomplete-record presumption does not apply when the appellant requested the complete reporter’s record and the admitted audio and video exhibits were actually included in the appellate record. The Tyler Court of Appeals rejected the argument that the record becomes “incomplete” merely because the court reporter did not identify timestamps or transcribe the exact clips played in the courtroom from admitted exhibits.
Relevance to Family Law
For Texas family-law litigators, this is an important appellate-record case in the context of modern divorce and SAPCR trials, where evidentiary presentations increasingly rely on body-cam footage, home surveillance, phone videos, recorded calls, and other digital media. Brookshire limits the ability of an appellee to invoke Rule 34.6(c) as a shortcut to affirmance when the appellant requested the full record and the exhibits themselves are before the appellate court. In property, conservatorship, possession, family-violence, and credibility-driven bench trials, that matters: it means the absence of clip-by-clip transcription will not automatically insulate the judgment from review.
Case Summary
Fact Summary
The appeal arose from a highly contested Smith County divorce involving substantial property issues, child-related issues, and extensive trial proceedings over nine days, followed by post-trial hearings. On appeal, before reaching the merits of Caroline Brookshire’s multiple issues, Trenton Brookshire argued that the appellate court should affirm based on an allegedly incomplete record.
That argument centered on several admitted digital exhibits: police body-camera videos, a home “nanny camera” recording, cellphone videos recorded by Caroline, and an audio recording of a phone call involving Trent’s private investigator and law enforcement. According to Trent, only portions of these recordings were played to the trial court during the bench trial, but the court reporter did not transcribe the specific excerpts that were played or mark timestamps identifying what the trial judge actually viewed or heard.
Caroline, however, had requested the complete reporter’s record in writing after trial, including all trial days, post-trial hearings, and all exhibits. The appellate record included the admitted audio and video exhibits themselves. Trent nevertheless contended that, because the record did not specify the exact segments shown in court, the record was incomplete and the court should apply the presumption that any missing portions supported the judgment.
The Tyler court rejected that position. The opinion emphasizes the distinction between a true partial-record appeal under Rule 34.6(c) and a complete-record request under Rule 34.6(b). The court also noted that the exhibits at issue had been admitted in their entirety, not for a limited purpose and not as excerpted-only evidence.
Issues Decided
The court decided the following record-preservation and appellate-record issues:
- Whether Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 34.6(c)’s incomplete-record presumption applies when the appellant requested the complete reporter’s record rather than a partial reporter’s record.
- Whether admitted audio and video exhibits are part of the appellate record for review even when the court reporter did not identify the exact portions played to the trial court during trial.
- Whether the absence of timestamps, clip designations, or transcribed excerpts from admitted recordings renders the appellate record incomplete in a manner that requires affirmance.
Rules Applied
The court’s analysis turned primarily on Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 34.6.
- Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 34.6(b): The appellant must request in writing that the court reporter prepare the reporter’s record and designate the portions of proceedings to be included.
- Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 34.6(c)(1): If the appellant requests only a partial reporter’s record, the appellant must include a statement of the points or issues to be presented on appeal.
- Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 34.6(c)(4): When a proper partial-record request is made with issues stated, the appellate court presumes the partial record constitutes the entire record for those issues.
- Bennett v. Cochran, 96 S.W.3d 227, 229 (Tex. 2002): If an appellant proceeds on a partial record without complying with Rule 34.6(c), the omitted portions are presumed relevant and supportive of the judgment.
- In re Tyler, 408 S.W.3d 491, 494 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2013, no pet.): Same general principle regarding the presumption tied to an incomplete or improperly limited record.
The court also distinguished authorities involving video depositions or situations where only played excerpts—and not the full evidentiary material admitted at trial—were available for review.
Application
The court approached Trent’s argument by first identifying the premise on which Rule 34.6(c) operates: a party has elected to proceed with less than the full reporter’s record. That did not happen here. Caroline did not request a partial reporter’s record. She requested the complete record, including all trial transcripts, post-trial hearings, and exhibits. That procedural fact was central.
From there, the court focused on the status of the digital media exhibits. These recordings were admitted into evidence in their entirety. They were not admitted as limited excerpts, and the trial court did not admit only selected clips. Because the exhibits themselves were part of the appellate record, the court was not persuaded that the absence of a reporter’s notation showing the exact timestamp played in open court transformed a complete-record appeal into an incomplete-record appeal.
The court thus rejected the effort to analogize the case to authorities involving video depositions where only select portions were played and the relevant played content was not otherwise preserved in a reviewable way. In Brookshire, the appellate court had the admitted exhibits. The problem identified by Trent was not that the evidence was absent from the record, but that the record did not specify which segment the trial court happened to focus on during presentation. The court treated that as insufficient to trigger the presumption that omitted material supports the judgment.
That distinction is strategically significant. The opinion suggests that where the evidentiary item itself is in the record, the burden does not shift to the appellant merely because the reporter failed to create a clip log or timestamp notation. In other words, Rule 34.6(c) is not a mechanism for converting imperfections in the manner of presentation into a categorical bar to appellate review.
Holding
The Tyler Court of Appeals held that the incomplete-record presumption under Rule 34.6(c) did not apply because Caroline requested the complete reporter’s record rather than a partial record. As a result, the court refused to presume that any supposed “missing” portions of the proceedings supported the trial court’s judgment.
The court further held that admitted audio and video exhibits included in the appellate record remain reviewable evidence even when the court reporter did not transcribe or timestamp the specific portions played during trial. The lack of timestamp identification or clip-specific transcription did not, by itself, establish an incomplete record warranting affirmance.
Stated practically, the court treated the admitted exhibits as part of the record for appellate review and rejected the appellee’s attempt to use Rule 34.6(c) to avoid merits review based on the reporter’s failure to specify which portions were played in the courtroom.
Practical Application
For family-law trial lawyers, Brookshire is both reassuring and cautionary. It is reassuring because it prevents an appellee from obtaining an automatic appellate advantage simply because digital evidence was presented imprecisely at trial. If the full reporter’s record is requested and the admitted digital exhibits are included, the appellant is not necessarily trapped by the absence of timestamp callouts.
But the case is also cautionary because it highlights a real trial-management problem. In a bench trial involving allegations of family violence, parental alienation, substance abuse, covert recordings, home surveillance, or law-enforcement interactions, the persuasive force often lies in a very short segment of a much longer recording. If the advocate does not make a clean record of the exact excerpt played, the appellate court may still review the exhibit, but the reviewing court may not know which portion counsel considered decisive. That can complicate harm analysis, legal-sufficiency framing, evidentiary complaints, and preservation arguments tied to context.
In divorce-property litigation, the same concern arises with audio and video exhibits used to prove reimbursement, fraud on the community, waste, or business-control disputes. In conservatorship and possession litigation, it arises even more often in recordings used to show parental judgment, police welfare checks, exchanges, or interactions with children. Brookshire tells us that the absence of a clip marker does not automatically doom the appeal. It does not tell us that litigators should be casual about record clarity.
The strategic takeaway is straightforward: do not rely on the court reporter to create precision that trial counsel can create directly. If only a portion of a long recording matters, identify it on the record, offer the excerpt if possible, state the timestamps, and ensure the exhibit list and oral presentation align. Brookshire saves appellants from one category of presumption; it does not eliminate the practical disadvantages of a muddy digital-evidence record.
Checklists
Building a Reviewable Digital-Evidence Record
- Request admission of the exhibit with a clear description of its contents and format.
- State on the record whether the exhibit is being offered in full or only by excerpt.
- If only part of a recording is being played, identify the beginning and ending timestamps on the record.
- Ask the court reporter to note the timestamps being played.
- If practicable, prepare and offer a clip compilation as a separate exhibit in addition to the full native file.
- Confirm that the admitted exhibit is actually transmitted to the court of appeals in playable form.
- Verify that the exhibit label used at trial matches the label in the clerk’s and reporter’s records.
Preserving Error in Family-Law Bench Trials
- Make sure objections to digital exhibits are stated with specificity, including authenticity, hearsay, Rule 403, completeness, and predicate objections where applicable.
- Obtain an express ruling on admissibility.
- If the court limits the purpose of the exhibit, make that limitation explicit in the record.
- If the court reviews a recording off the record or in chambers, request that the reviewed portion be identified by exhibit number and timestamps.
- Tie the exhibit to the issue being tried—conservatorship, possession, family violence, reimbursement, waste, or credibility.
- When necessary, make an offer of proof identifying excluded timestamps or excluded clips.
Protecting the Appellate Record
- File a written request for the complete reporter’s record if you anticipate appellate issues extending beyond a narrow point.
- Specifically request inclusion of all admitted exhibits, demonstratives if relevant, and post-trial hearings.
- After the record is filed, audit whether each audio/video exhibit is included and accessible.
- If an exhibit is missing, corrupted, or nonfunctional, move promptly to supplement or correct the record.
- Do not assume the court reporter’s narrative notation will adequately reflect what was played in court.
- In cases with extensive media evidence, consider a post-trial record memorandum identifying key exhibit timestamps for appellate orientation.
Responding to an Appellee’s “Incomplete Record” Argument
- Distinguish between a true partial-record appeal under Rule 34.6(c) and a complete-record request under Rule 34.6(b).
- Emphasize that admitted exhibits contained in the appellate record are part of the record for review.
- Argue that the absence of timestamp notation is not the same as omission of the exhibit itself.
- Distinguish authorities involving untranscribed video depositions or non-admitted excerpts.
- Show that the complained-of evidence was admitted in full, not just played selectively for a limited purpose.
- Frame the appellee’s argument as an effort to create a presumption untethered to the text and function of Rule 34.6(c).
Avoiding the Non-Prevailing Party’s Problem
- Do not build an affirmance strategy around the assumption that digital-evidence imprecision equals an incomplete record.
- If you intend to argue that only certain portions matter, seek clarity at trial by asking that timestamps be identified.
- If a recording is admitted in full, recognize that the appellate court may review the entire exhibit.
- When offering or opposing multimedia evidence, create a record that makes your future appellate position coherent.
- Preserve any argument that a particular excerpt—not the whole recording—was the evidentiary basis for the ruling.
- Avoid conflating “the reporter did not mark the clip” with “the exhibit is absent from the record.”
Citation
In the Matter of the Marriage of Brookshire, No. 12-24-00322-CV, ___ S.W.3d ___ (Tex. App.—Tyler June 3, 2026, no pet. h.).
Full Opinion
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