Tex. R. Civ. P. 86 · you have been sued in the wrong county
The venue motion goes first, or it does not go at all.
Texas does not give you a number of days to object to venue. It gives you a
position in the order of pleading. The motion to transfer must be filed
before or at the same time as any other plea, pleading or motion — with one exception,
a special appearance.
File an answer first and say nothing about venue, and the objection is generally
gone. Not weakened. Gone.
or answer two questions
Due order of pleading · Rule 86(1)
What has been filed on your behalf so far?
This is the whole question. Venue is not lost by a calendar — it is lost by
filing something else first.
Where it is, and where it should be
Two counties matter: the one you were sued in, and the one you say it belongs in.
The gap between them is the motion. The county also decides which court of appeals binds your
trial judge, and venue law is a place where the districts do not always read the same.
One question that changes everything
Some venue provisions are mandatory. If one applies, the analysis is not
about convenience or where the witnesses are — the case has to go, and the trial court has no
discretion to keep it.
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.
✓
Surgitek, Bristol-Myers Corp. v. Abel
997 S.W.2d 598 (Tex. 1999)
How venue is actually proved. Once venue facts are specifically denied, the
party pleading them must make prima facie proof — and the trial court takes that proof as
true. Most venue motions are won or lost on this mechanic, not on the merits.
cited by 295
✓
Ruiz v. Conoco, Inc.
868 S.W.2d 752 (Tex. 1994)
What counts as prima facie proof of a venue fact, and what a court may and may
not consider on the papers.
cited by 327
✓
Curtis v. Gibbs
511 S.W.2d 263 (Tex. 1974)
The due-order rule and what waives it. The reason this page opens by asking
what you filed rather than when you were served.
cited by 325
✓
In re Missouri Pacific Railroad Co.
998 S.W.2d 212 (Tex. 1999)
Mandamus where a mandatory venue provision is ignored — the route when the
trial court refuses a transfer it had no discretion to refuse.
cited by 242
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.
A venue clause changes the tool Attorney reviewed
A written agreement fixing the county is not argued the way ordinary venue is
argued. It is enforced — and where a trial court refuses to enforce it, mandamus is the settled
route rather than an appeal after trial.
✓
In re Prudential Insurance Co. of America
148 S.W.3d 124 (Tex. 2004)
The controlling statement on enforcing forum-selection agreements by mandamus,
and on why an appeal after trial is not an adequate remedy for being made to try a case in the
wrong place. The most-cited case in this posture by a wide margin.
cited by 4,288
✓
In re AIU Insurance Co.
148 S.W.3d 109 (Tex. 2004)
Decided the same day as Prudential. Forum-selection clauses are enforced absent
a clear showing that enforcement would be unreasonable or unjust.
cited by 311
✓
In re Pirelli Tire, L.L.C.
247 S.W.3d 670 (Tex. 2007)
Where the better forum is somewhere else entirely — the framework when the
argument is inconvenience rather than a clause or a statute.
cited by 178
If venue was waived, that is not the end of the file Attorney reviewed
An answer filed without a venue motion usually ends the venue objection. It does
not end the routes that sit next to it, and two of them are not waivable in the same way. This
is the posture where the honest answer is often "not this motion — that one", and it is worth
knowing which before you spend anything.
A forum-selection clause is contractual
Enforcement of a written agreement about where suit may be brought is analyzed differently
from a statutory venue objection. If your contract names a county, that is worth looking at
even after an answer.
Jurisdiction is not venue
Whether the court has power over you at all is a separate question from whether the case
sits in the right county, and it is not lost by answering in the same way.
Transfer for convenience is its own motion
Section 15.002(b) transfer runs on convenience and the interests of justice rather than on
the venue facts, and it is not the motion the due-order rule governs.
Consolidation and severance
Where the same dispute is pending in more than one county, the practical fix is sometimes
neither a transfer nor an appeal.
Send the petition and whatever answer was filed. Telling you
the venue motion is gone costs you nothing, and it is better heard now than after you have paid
for one.
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 transfer venue 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.