Abstract
Amendments to the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure were enacted by the Texas Supreme Court in response to legislative policy initiatives intended to reduce expense and delay of civil litigation while maintaining fairness to litigants. The 2013 amendments provided specific procedural rules for dismissals for baseless actions, and an expedited process and limitation on discovery for cases in which claimants seek monetary relief of $100,000 or less (expedited actions).
The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) undertook this evaluation in cooperation with the Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA) to assess the impact of the expedited Actions Rules. The intent of the evaluation was to determine if the rules are working as intended to reduce time and costs associated with civil litigation, to assess the role of mediation in civil litigation, to identify areas of strength and weakness in civil case processing, and to propose recommendations as appropriate to align the rules with desired outcomes. The modified rules were expected to have a variety of effects addressing the duration, cost, and degree of conflict in discovery, the costs associated with mediation, the time to disposition, and the length of trials.
This abstract has been taken from the authors' introduction.
Document Type
Report
Publication Date
9-2016
Publication Information
National Center for State Courts (2016)
Repository Citation
Hannaford-Agor, Paula and Graves, Scott, "Texas: Impact of the Expedited Action Rules on the Texas County Courts at Law" (2016). Faculty Publications. 2392.
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/2392