John Henry & Associates
Texas corpus · live
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 171 / FAA · waiver by litigation conduct

There is no deadline. That is what makes this dangerous.

Nothing in the rules gives you a number of days to move to compel arbitration. What takes the right away is conduct — substantially invoking the judicial process to the other side's detriment. You do not miss this deadline. You spend it, a little at a time, doing ordinary things that felt like defending yourself.

Which means the question is not when. It is what have you already done.

or answer one question
Perry Homes factors · substantially invoking the judicial process

Which of these have you already done in this lawsuit?

Tick everything that applies. These are the things Texas courts actually weigh, and most people have done two or three without knowing they counted.

Where this sits on the Perry Homes factors

Where these answers come from

We hold the published Texas case law in our own index and query it directly. No vendor sits between the question and the answer. That is the reason a discrete motion can carry a price on a web page instead of an hourly rate and a hope.

881,255
Texas decisions indexed
6 ms
Median query, this posture
841,641
Parallel citations mapped
26 Jun 2026
Index current through

Authority that may bear on your posture Attorney reviewed

Pulled from our index for this mechanism and read by a lawyer before it went on this page. A green check means the decision is on point for this posture. It is not a statement that the case has been shepardized, and it is not a representation about its current precedential standing.

Perry Homes v. Cull
258 S.W.3d 580 (Tex. 2008)
The controlling case. Waiver turns on the totality of the conduct — how much of the judicial process was invoked, how much discovery was taken that would not have been available in arbitration, and whether the other side was prejudiced. There is no bright line, and the court said so on purpose.
cited by
603
In re D. Wilson Construction Co.
196 S.W.3d 774 (Tex. 2006)
The presumption runs strongly against waiver, and doubts are resolved in favor of arbitration. This is the case that makes an uphill posture winnable.
cited by
546
EZ Pawn Corp. v. Mancias
934 S.W.2d 87 (Tex. 1996)
Participating in discovery and setting a case for trial did not waive arbitration on that record. Useful for showing where the line has actually been drawn rather than where it feels like it should be.
cited by
399
G.T. Leach Builders, LLC v. Sapphire V.P., LP
458 S.W.3d 502 (Tex. 2015)
The modern restatement, and it collects the factors. Also holds that moving to transfer venue and designating responsible third parties did not substantially invoke the process.
cited by
330

Counts are the number of later decisions in our index that cite the case. A high count means a case has been used, not that it is good law. Nothing on this page is a citator signal and we will not show one until it is produced by reading opinions rather than counting them.

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