# Restarting the appellate clock when notice came late

Source: https://www.jhenrylaw.com/mechanism/rule-306a-restarting-the-clock/
Author: John P. Henry, John Henry & Associates, PLLC
Reviewed: 2026-08-02

**Tex. R. Civ. P. 306a(4), (5)**

## What if you never got notice that judgment was signed in Texas?

The periods restart from the day you found out — but only if you found out more than twenty days after the judgment was signed, only up to a ninety-day outer limit, and only if you prove it in the trial court on a sworn motion. Miss any of those and the deadlines ran without you.

> [I]f within twenty days after the judgment or other appealable order is signed, a party adversely affected by it or his attorney has neither received the notice required by paragraph (3) of this rule nor acquired actual knowledge of the order, then … all the periods … shall begin on the date that such party or his attorney received such notice or acquired actual knowledge … but in no event shall such periods begin more than ninety days after the original judgment … was signed.

— Tex. R. Civ. P. 306a(4)

## When it applies

The judgment signed at a hearing you were not told about, the notice sent to an old address, the dismissal that arrived after the plenary power had run. It is the predicate that makes a late motion for new trial or motion to reinstate timely.

## How it is proved up

1. File the sworn motion. Rule 306a(5) makes proving the date in the trial court a prerequisite, not a formality — without it the extension does not exist, and appellate courts say so.
2. Prove two things: the date of first notice or actual knowledge, and that it was more than twenty days after the judgment was signed.
3. Get a finding. The trial court’s determination of the date is what the appellate court will use.
4. File the substantive motion at the same time — the motion for new trial, the motion to reinstate — rather than waiting for the 306a ruling.
5. Count to ninety before anything else. If actual knowledge came on day ninety-one, this rule cannot help and the remedies are a restricted appeal or a bill of review.

## What defeats it

- Notice received within twenty days, which gets no extension at all.
- The ninety-day cap, which is absolute.
- An unsworn motion, or no motion.
- Actual knowledge acquired informally — a phone call from opposing counsel starts the clock as surely as the clerk’s notice.

## Where I have used it

The unglamorous predicate underneath several of the entries in this category. A motion to reinstate or for new trial filed on day fifty is timely or untimely depending entirely on whether this motion was filed and granted first.

## Questions

**What is a Rule 306a motion in Texas?**

A sworn motion filed in the trial court proving the date on which a party or its attorney first received notice or acquired actual knowledge that the judgment was signed, in order to restart the post-judgment and appellate periods from that date.

**What is the ninety-day limit in Rule 306a?**

No matter how late notice was received, the periods may not begin more than ninety days after the original judgment or appealable order was signed. Rule 306a(4).

**What if notice came within twenty days of the judgment?**

There is no extension. Rule 306a(4) applies only where neither notice nor actual knowledge was obtained within twenty days after the judgment was signed.


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