John Henry & Associates
Texas corpus · live
Tex. R. Civ. P. 199.4 · a deposition has been noticed

There is a three-day rule. Everything turns on it.

A motion to quash filed by the third business day after the notice is served stays the deposition automatically — no hearing, no order, nothing to prove yet. Filed on the fourth day, that stay is gone and the argument has to carry it instead.

Both routes are workable. They are not the same case, and the difference is a date.

or answer three questions
The 199.4 window · computed live

How did the deposition notice reach you?

The rule runs from service, so this is the question that decides everything that follows.

Which court is it in?

The county decides which court of appeals binds your trial judge, and that decides which line of authority we argue from. Two identical motions in two counties are not the same motion.

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.

Crown Central Petroleum Corp. v. Garcia
904 S.W.2d 125 (Tex. 1995)
The apex rule. An officer at the top of the organization may resist by affidavit denying unique or superior personal knowledge; the other side must then show it, or exhaust less intrusive discovery first.
cited by
98
In re Alcatel USA, Inc.
11 S.W.3d 173 (Tex. 2000)
Applies Crown Central and confirms mandamus is available where a trial court orders an apex deposition without the required showing.
cited by
68
In re Daisy Manufacturing Co.
17 S.W.3d 654 (Tex. 2000)
The affidavit is not a formality — a conclusory denial of knowledge does not carry the apex burden.
cited by
97
In re El Paso Healthcare System
969 S.W.2d 68 (Tex. App.—El Paso 1998, orig. proceeding)
Corporate representative notices: a designation that does not describe the matters for examination with reasonable particularity cannot be prepared for, and that is the strongest ground on a Rule 199.2(b)(1) notice.
cited by
32

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.

Send us this one problem. Not your whole case.

We will read it and tell you what we would do if we represented you on this single task — what we would file, on what ground, and what it would cost to have us do it.

The read is free.
If you want it written and filed, a motion to quash runs $1,000 – $5,000, depending on the facts and the court. It is a discrete engagement — not a retainer, not an hourly relationship — and it ends when the motion is determined.
One name. We run conflicts before anyone here reads a word of the rest.
Optional, but it is the first thing we look at.
Plain words are fine. If you answered the questions above or dropped a document, we will add that to this for you.

Same-day answer on anything that arrives before noon Central. Or email jhenry@jhenrylaw.com with the document attached — it works exactly as well.