A fair chance to recover from those also responsible
Give Homicide Families Time to Sue
Time to sue after a homicide prosecution: six years, not two, for a wrongful-death claim against third parties whose responsibility the criminal case reveals — with the clock protected while the prosecution runs.
DRAFT — not filed Proposed bill for the 90th Texas Legislature · Amends Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.003(b) · Last updated November 5, 2026
The problem
Texas gives a family two years from the date of a loved one's death to bring a wrongful-death lawsuit (Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.003(b)). That clock runs no matter what the criminal justice system is doing. But in a homicide, the evidence that someone besides the killer also bears responsibility — a bar that overserved him, a property owner who ignored a known danger, an employer who hired without looking — usually surfaces inside the criminal case: in investigation files, forensic reports, and sworn testimony the family cannot obtain or use while the prosecution is pending.
Criminal cases do not run on the family's schedule. A first trial can end in a hung jury; a retrial can take another year or more. The two-year deadline can expire before the family knows a third-party claim exists — extinguished not by anything the family did, but by the State's own timetable.
What the bill does
- A six-year base period. In homicide cases, the wrongful-death limitations period is six years from the date of death, against any defendant — the perpetrator and third parties alike — and for all beneficiaries.
- A floor while a prosecution is pending. If a Texas prosecution is commenced by indictment while time remains, the family's remaining time can never fall below 1.5 years while the case is pending: the clock pauses at that floor, and an indictment that arrives with less than 1.5 years remaining restores the balance to 1.5 years. There is no outer cap on this protection.
- "Conclusion" means the first criminal case ending. The tolling runs until the first case concludes — reaching a verdict or being dropped, not sentencing and not appeals — because new liability information rarely surfaces after the verdict. A hung jury is not a conclusion; the case remains pending until a verdict, a plea, or a filed dismissal.
- A six-month lag before the clock resumes. The clock resumes running six months after the case concludes, so every family has at least two full years in real time after the case ends to decide and file.
- A firm outer horizon when nothing is filed. If no indictment issues within the six years, the claim expires at year six — and cannot be revived. The six years are the horizon.
Why it works
Virginia tolls the civil clock during a prosecution and guarantees a filing window afterward; Georgia tolls for up to six years. Texas gives families nothing. This design also stays inside the Texas Constitution: under Article I, §16 and Robinson v. Crown Cork & Seal, the Legislature may not revive a claim that has already expired, because a limitations defence vests at expiry. This bill never revives anything. Every protection in it attaches only while a claim is still alive, and a claim already expired when the bill takes effect — or before an indictment is filed — stays expired. The floor and the six-month lag protect time the Legislature has already granted; they do not manufacture it.
The strongest objection is that a business may first learn it is a target years after a death, when its own records are gone and its insurer has closed its reserves. The answer is that in this class of cases the evidence is preserved by the State — sworn, transcribed, and exhibited — and the exposure is bounded: six years with no indictment, and a fixed minimum filing window after one. The alternative under current law is worse for defendants too: prudent lawyers file speculative suits against every plausible third party before the criminal evidence exists. This bill lets families wait for the facts and sue once.
Rights and safeguards
- The bill is outcome-neutral. A conviction for a lesser offence, a guilty plea, an acquittal, or a decision not to prosecute all count as a conclusion — a family's civil rights do not rise or fall with the criminal verdict.
- A "same facts" test, not a proof burden. The claim need only arise out of the same facts as the prosecution; the family does not have to prove the criminal case "revealed" it.
- Expired claims stay expired. Nothing in the bill revives a claim that has already expired — not when the law takes effect, and not later.
- Governmental defendants are included, fairly. Claim notice to a governmental unit is timely if given within six months after the criminal case concludes.
- Repose and the elements of the claim are untouched. Statutes of repose are expressly preserved; the bill creates no new cause of action and changes no element, defence, or damages rule.
How hard will this be to pass?
Lengthening a limitations period from two years to six is a substantial change, and business and insurance interests routinely oppose longer exposure windows — expect organised opposition rather than a quiet committee hearing. The design answers the fairness objection on the merits (the criminal case preserves the evidence, and no expired claim is ever revived), but the constitutional line against revival will be scrutinised word by word, because one drafting slip could sink the whole bill.
Cost
No significant cost to the state is expected from the limitations change itself; governmental units' exposure is bounded by the Tort Claims Act's existing damages caps.
How this gap in the law actually plays out
Cayley Mandadi was killed in 2017. Her case did not end with one trial. The first trial ended with a hung jury. The State tried the case a second time, and at the retrial the jury convicted her killer of aggravated assault — not homicide — and he received twenty years. Her father, Lawrence Baitland, does not recite that to argue about the verdict. He recites it because of what it means for time: from her death to the end of that second trial, years passed, and every one of them was consumed by a process the family did not control — not the pace of the investigation, not the trial settings, not the hung jury, not the decision to retry. The family were witnesses in that case. They were not parties to it. They waited, because waiting was the only role the system gave them.
Under the two-year clock, a family in exactly that position can watch the entire limitations period be consumed by the prosecution of the person who killed their loved one — and reach the end of it to find their civil claims gone. Not decided against them. Never heard at all. And the claims most likely to be lost are the ones families usually do not know they have at the beginning. The first question after a death is who did it. The second question — who else bears responsibility — is usually answered by the criminal case itself: whether a bar served a man long past obvious intoxication and let him leave, whether a property owner knew of a danger on the premises and ignored it. Those facts rarely sit in a police report on day one. They come out in investigation files, in compelled records, and in testimony under oath — material the family cannot use while the criminal case is pending, because the evidence belongs to the prosecution.
Other jurisdictions have already made this judgment. Virginia pauses the civil clock while a prosecution is pending and guarantees filing time afterward. Georgia pauses it for up to six years. Federal law stays a trafficking victim's civil case while the criminal case runs. Texas, today, does none of these things. The Texas family's clock simply expires.
Likely criticism — and our answers
You will meet these arguments in committee, in the press, and possibly inside your own organisation. Each is stated in its strongest fair form. The expected sources, named here as likely critics — a different thing from naming an ally — are tort-reform organisations (Texans for Lawsuit Reform, and the Texas Civil Justice League, whose published principles state that it generally opposes bills that create new ways to sue and prize a predictable liability environment), insurer groups, the businesses that are the usual third-party defendants in these cases, and governmental-entity associations. Except for the Civil Justice League's stated principles, these are inferences from each organisation's mission and record; none has taken a position on this bill, and none has been contacted about it.
"Limitations exist so defendants can defend while evidence is fresh. A business sued five years on has lost its records, its employees, and its chance to defend itself."
This is the strongest objection, and it is a real one: defending a negligent-security or negligent-hiring case years after the event is genuinely harder. Three features of this bill answer it. First, in this class of cases the evidence is preserved by the State — sworn testimony, exhibits, forensic reports, surveillance and records developed under compulsion, all transcribed — typically better evidence than anything available at month twenty. Second, statutes of repose, the substantive protection that cuts off a claim regardless of discovery, are expressly untouched. Third, the exposure is bounded and knowable: if no indictment issues within six years, the claim expires at year six and cannot be revived; if one does, what is guaranteed is a fixed minimum filing window — a year and a half of clock, beginning six months after the first case concludes.
"This revives dead claims. The Texas Constitution forbids retroactive laws, and a limitations defence is a vested right."
The constitutional premise is correct, and the bill is built around it. Under Robinson v. Crown Cork & Seal and the Mellinger line, a limitations defence vests only when the period has fully run — which is why this bill never revives anything. Every protection in it attaches only while a claim is still alive: the floor engages only if an indictment is filed before the period expires, the draft says expressly that a prosecution commencing after expiry does nothing, claims already barred when the Act takes effect stay barred, and final judgments are untouched. What the bill does is lengthen a clock that is still running — the classic permissible operation — not resurrect one that has stopped for good.
"Insurers price on the two-year Texas clock. This extends the tail unpredictably, on a timetable — a prosecutor's — that no business or insurer controls or even monitors."
The tail is longer, but it is not unpredictable. The outer facts an actuary needs are fixed numbers in the bill: a six-year horizon where no prosecution is brought, and a defined minimum window after a timely indictment. Exposure keyed to a criminal case is also not new to Texas law: §16.0045 already imposes periods of five and thirty years for listed offences. And the fairness premise cuts both ways — the family's claim is being consumed by the same prosecutor's timetable, set by the State, in a case the family did not choose to be part of.
"This is a special-interest exception to limitations law, and it will grow. Every case will litigate what counts as a prosecution, when it 'concluded,' and whether the claim is covered."
The bill is narrow on its face: homicide cases only, wrongful-death claims only, no new cause of action, no changed element, defence, or damages rule. The threshold questions are answered in the text rather than left open — a qualifying prosecution is a Texas indictment (not an investigation, not a federal or juvenile proceeding), "conclusion" is the first verdict, accepted plea, or filed dismissal, and a hung jury is expressly not a conclusion. The nexus test is Virginia's "same facts" standard, and the claimant must plead and prove the prosecution, its conclusion date, and that nexus — so the burden of the new questions sits on the person invoking the bill. An early generation of construction litigation attends any new timing rule; the drafting is built to keep it short.
"Families already have tools: file protectively, or use the discovery rule."
Neither tool reaches this case. The discovery rule is categorical, and under Exxon v. Emerald Oil the clock runs from knowledge of the injury even if the claimant does not know the specific cause or the party responsible — a death is never "inherently undiscoverable," yet the facts establishing a third party's liability may be unprovable until the criminal trial develops them. Protective filing is worse, including for defendants: it means suing every plausible third party on suspicion, before the criminal evidence exists — more litigation, more innocent parties sued, more cost for the very businesses raising this objection. This bill lets the family wait for the facts and sue once, against whom the evidence supports.
Potential allies
These are the kinds of organisation whose missions and records align with this bill. Organisations are deliberately not named here. A group that found its own name on a bill page could reasonably read it as being cited as a supporter, and no organisation has committed to this bill. Named research is kept in the project's working papers; a category below means a natural conversation to have, not a position taken.
- Survivor-run victims' rights organisations in Texas — organisations led by the families of homicide victims, whose members have lived the two-year clock running out during a killer's trial.
- Organisations of families bereaved by impaired driving — impaired-driving deaths generate Texas's most common third-party civil theory, the claim against an alcohol provider that overserved, alongside criminal cases that routinely outlast the civil deadline.
- Family-violence advocacy organisations — family-violence homicides are a recurring source of third-party claims involving employers, landlords, and others who were warned.
- Sexual-assault victims' advocacy organisations — Texas already gives long limitations periods for listed sexual offences; whether those periods fully reach negligent third parties, as distinct from the perpetrator, is contested, which is this bill's gap in miniature.
- The plaintiffs' trial bar, as a technical ally — the natural source of drafting expertise on limitations mechanics. Expect opponents to use that alignment as a framing weapon ("a trial-lawyer bill"); the answer is that the proposal's authors are a victim's family, and the bill creates no new way to sue.
Prosecutors are a consultee, not a counted ally. A rule that lets families wait may quietly relieve a real friction point — civil lawyers conducting parallel discovery while a prosecution is pending — but prosecutors may equally resist anything that appears to tie civil outcomes to charging decisions. Support should not be assumed; a "does not harm prosecutions" position may be the realistic ask.
Prospective authors
To be published after re-verification. Candidates to approach — several members, identified from their records on victims' legislation and on limitations law in the 88th and 89th Legislatures — have been researched and are held in the project's working papers. Because the 2026 election changed the House, the governorship, and the Lieutenant Governorship, no names are published here until rosters and committee assignments for the 90th Legislature are verified in January. What can be said now: the strongest approach pairs a member with a personal connection to this family's earlier legislation with a sponsor whose record marks the bill as a victims' bill, and adds a member who has already done the limitations-and-retroactivity work.
Fiscal and implementation notes
- The limitations change itself carries no significant administrative cost — it changes a filing deadline, creates no programme, and court-filing effects are expected to be minimal.
- Governmental exposure is the one fiscal question, and it should not be waved away. Governmental units are included as potential defendants, so the budget office may note increased exposure for state and local units (for example, facility or negligent-security claims arising from a homicide). That exposure is bounded by the Tort Claims Act's existing damages caps, and the bill fixes the related trap: claim notice to a governmental unit is timely if given within six months after the criminal case concludes.
- Nothing to implement. No agency rulemaking, no new forms, no reporting duty: courts apply the new period through the ordinary limitations process, with the claimant bearing the burden of pleading and proving the prosecution and its conclusion date.
Talking points
- "The clock runs from the worst day of a family's life, straight through the State's own prosecution."
- "It revives nothing. Claims already expired stay expired — that line is in the bill, and it is the line the Constitution draws."
- "It creates no new cause of action and changes no rule of liability. It changes only when the courthouse door closes."
- "Virginia pauses the clock. Georgia pauses the clock. Federal law stays the civil case. Texas does none of these — the family's clock simply expires."
- "A family's civil rights should not rise or fall with a criminal verdict that was never theirs to control."
- "Let families wait for the facts and sue once — instead of suing everyone on suspicion before the evidence exists."
Questions advocates ask
Does this bill revive claims that have already expired?
No — never. A claim barred before the Act takes effect stays barred; a claim that expires before any indictment is filed stays expired; final judgments are untouched. Every protection attaches only to a claim that is still alive.
What if no one is ever indicted?
Then the family has the six-year base period and nothing more. At year six the claim expires, and nothing in the bill can revive it. The six years are the horizon.
When is a criminal case "concluded"?
At the first verdict (including a conviction on a lesser offence), an accepted guilty or no-contest plea, or a filed dismissal. A hung jury is not a conclusion — the protection continues through a retrial — and neither sentencing nor appeals delay the date.
Who can sue, and whom can they sue?
The wrongful-death beneficiaries under Chapter 71 — the deceased's surviving spouse, children, and parents. The six-year period applies against any defendant: the perpetrator and third parties alike, including governmental units, whose claim-notice deadline the bill also fixes.
Does the family have to prove the criminal case revealed their claim?
No. The claim need only arise out of the same facts as the prosecution — Virginia's test. The family must plead and prove the prosecution, when it commenced and concluded, and that same-facts connection; they do not carry a proof burden about what the criminal case did or did not reveal.
Download the draft bill in Texas House format (PDF) — DRAFT, not filed
Current law
| Provision | What it does now |
|---|---|
| Civil Practice & Remedies Code §16.003(b) | The wrongful-death clock: suit "not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues in an action for injury resulting in death," and the cause of action accrues on the death of the injured person. (§16.002 is a one-year period for libel, slander, and similar claims — not this one.) There is no statutory pause while the State investigates, indicts, tries, hangs a jury, and retries. |
| Chapter 71 (§§71.002, 71.004, 71.021) | The claims themselves. Liability for a death caused by a "wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default"; the wrongful-death action is for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents (§71.004 — siblings have no Texas wrongful-death claim); the deceased's own personal-injury claim survives to the heirs, legal representatives, and estate (§71.021). |
| Texas tolling law generally | Tolling is specific and statutory — "ordinarily, once the limitations period commences to run, nothing will stop it except an event provided for by statute." The Chapter 16 tolling rules that exist are narrow: disability at accrual (§16.001), a defendant's absence from the state (§16.063), Doe-defendant filing in §16.0045 cases. No Texas statute tolls or restarts a civil clock because a related criminal prosecution is pending. The judge-made doctrines do not fill the gap: the discovery rule is categorical (HECI Exploration Co. v. Neel), and under Exxon v. Emerald Oil knowledge of the injury starts the clock even without knowledge of the specific cause or the party responsible — close to fatal where the injury (a death) is known but the third party's liability is not yet provable. |
| §16.0045 | Texas's crime-based extended periods: thirty years for listed child sexual offences, five years for listed adult sexual-assault and trafficking offences, with death claims accruing on the death (§16.0045(c)). Whether those long periods reach non-perpetrator third parties, as opposed to the perpetrator alone, is contested — the gap this bill addresses in miniature. The draft preserves any longer period; it never shortens one. |
| Statutes of repose (§§16.008, 16.009, 16.011, 16.012; §74.251) | Repose is substantive, not procedural: it abolishes the cause of action itself after a fixed period from the defendant's act (ten years for construction/design professionals and surveyors; fifteen for products liability), whether or not the claim has accrued or been discovered, and it is generally not tolled. The draft expressly does not extend, revive, or affect any period of repose. |
| Va. Code §8.01-229(K) (comparator) | Virginia's answer to the same collision: where a criminal prosecution arising out of the same facts is commenced, the time the prosecution is pending "shall not be computed" in the civil limitations period for personal-injury and wrongful-death actions, and after final disposition the claimant has the remaining period or one year, whichever is longer. A late-indictment safety valve (prosecution commenced after the civil period ran) is capped at ten years from the crime. Georgia tolls from the date of the crime until the prosecution is final or terminated, capped at six years (O.C.G.A. §9-3-99), and federal law stays a trafficking victim's civil action during the criminal case (18 U.S.C. §1595(b)). Texas has no equivalent of any of them. |
What the draft changes, section by section
- Section 1 — legislative findings. Four findings: third-party responsibility is characteristically developed in the criminal proceeding, through material the family cannot obtain or use while it pends; the two-year period can expire entirely during investigation, trial, and retrial after a hung jury, through no fault of the family; Virginia and Georgia have addressed the same collision by tolling plus a guaranteed post-conclusion window; and the Act lengthens only periods that have not yet run, revives nothing, and disturbs no statute of repose. The findings are drafted to feed the public-interest factor of the Robinson retroactivity inquiry, should it ever be run.
- Section 2 — §16.003(b) amended. The two-year default remains for death actions generally, "except as provided by" the new section — the six-year regime is a homicide-case rule, not a general amendment of the two-year period.
- Section 3 — the new Chapter 16 section (number to be assigned). Definitions first: a "homicide case" is one in which death was caused by conduct constituting an offence under Penal Code Chapter 19 — a fact-based test, so a case indicted as a homicide and concluded by conviction on a lesser offence remains covered. A "qualifying prosecution" is a criminal prosecution in a Texas court of any person for an offence arising out of the act or omission that caused the death — including a prosecution of the very person against whom the civil claim is asserted — and expressly excludes juvenile adjudications and federal or other-state prosecutions. It commences on the filing of an indictment (or, where indictment is waived or not required, an information). "Conclusion" is the earliest of a rendered verdict (including on a lesser included offence, and including a bench-trial finding), the court's acceptance of a guilty or no-contest plea, or a signed order dismissing or otherwise terminating the prosecution; a jury's inability to reach a verdict is expressly not a conclusion, and a decision not to retry counts only when a dismissal is filed and the order signed.
- The six-year base (subsection (b)). In a homicide case, a Chapter 71 action must be brought not later than six years after the date of death — regardless of the defendant (perpetrator or any other person) and regardless of the beneficiary.
- The floor (subsection (c)). If a qualifying prosecution commences before the six-year period expires, the period may not expire during the prosecution's pendency. If eighteen months or more remain when the prosecution commences, the clock runs down to eighteen months and then suspends; if less than eighteen months remain, the balance is increased to eighteen months and suspends immediately. The floor is 1.5 years, guaranteed.
- Resumption (subsection (d)). The period does not run during the six months following conclusion; it then resumes with the balance as it stood at conclusion. Floor plus lag guarantee every family at least two years in real time after the first case ends.
- Non-expiry, first case, and excluded proceedings (subsections (e)–(g)). The floor and lag apply only if the prosecution commences before the period expires; an expired claim "is barred, and this section does not revive it." Only the first qualifying prosecution engages the machinery. Parole and mandatory-supervision proceedings, community-supervision revocations, and habeas proceedings are not qualifying prosecutions and do not affect conclusion; an appeal does not postpone conclusion.
- Outcome-neutrality and nexus (subsections (h)–(i)). The machinery applies however the prosecution concludes — conviction of the offence charged or a lesser included offence, acquittal, plea, or dismissal. It applies to a claim arising out of the same facts as the prosecution, and the claimant is expressly not required to prove the prosecution first revealed or materially clarified the claim.
- Savings and burden (subsections (j)–(n)). Statutes of repose are unaffected; longer periods (including §16.0045's) are preserved, never shortened; a claimant invoking the floor or lag must plead and prove the prosecution's commencement, pendency, conclusion date, and the same-facts nexus; the section creates no cause of action and changes no element, defence, damages rule, admissibility or preclusion rule, and neither requires nor prohibits a stay. The new period and the responsible-third-party period in §33.004(e) operate independently, and the claimant gets the later of the two deadlines.
- Section 4 — governmental notice fix (§101.101(d)). For a claim within the new section where a qualifying prosecution commenced before limitations expired, Tort Claims Act notice is timely if given not later than six months after the prosecution's conclusion — so the notice deadline cannot quietly defeat the limitations protection for governmental defendants.
- Section 5 — applicability. The Act applies to a cause of action whose limitations period, as lengthened by the Act, had not expired on the effective date — regardless of whether the death occurred before, on, or after that date. It does not revive a cause of action whose period, as lengthened, expired before the effective date, and does not affect any final judgment. Effective date: September 1, 2027 (Section 6).
Legal analysis
- Where the vested right sits. Texas Constitution art. I, §16 forbids retroactive laws. Under Mellinger v. City of Houston, as restated in Robinson v. Crown Cork & Seal Co., 335 S.W.3d 126 (Tex. 2010), once a limitations period has fully run, the defendant's defence "has become fixed or vested, and is beyond the reach of retroactive legislation" — the Legislature "cannot resurrect causes of action that have already been extinguished by retroactively lengthening the statute of limitations." Tenet Hospitals v. Rivera confirms that of the few successful Texas retroactivity challenges, two involved exactly that: limitations amendments that revived barred claims. The vesting is defendant-by-defendant and claim-by-claim, at expiry — which is why the draft's applicability clause is written claim-specifically, not case-specifically.
- Why a still-running claim is different. Before expiry, no defence has vested; limitations is procedural and remedial as to a running clock, and lengthening an unexpired period — leaving a reasonable time to sue — is the classic permissible application of a new limitations law. Every operative feature of this bill is confined to that side of the line: the six-year base applies only where the period as lengthened had not expired on the effective date; the floor engages only on an indictment filed before expiry; the resumption lag only ever spends time the Act itself has granted. The bill protects time within a live period; it does not manufacture time after death of the claim.
- The case the bill deliberately does not reach. A family whose two years already expired during a still-pending prosecution before the Act takes effect is the most sympathetic case of all — and reaching it would be revival, the one operation art. I, §16 forbids. Reviving such claims would require a constitutional amendment (the route attempted and lost in the 89th Legislature). The bill does not attempt it, and advocates should say so plainly rather than let a supporter discover the limit in committee: no-revival is not a gap in the drafting; it is the reason the bill is constitutional.
- The one place the bill adds time — and why it holds. Where an indictment arrives with less than eighteen months remaining, the floor increases the balance to eighteen months. That is literally adding time to a clock, and "revival in disguise" briefing should be expected in that narrow band. The answer is doctrinal: the claim is still running, no defence has vested, so the operation is lengthening, not resurrection. The draft surrounds the point with its defences — the non-expiry condition, the no-revival savings clause, and findings stating the theory.
- The Robinson factors as a backstop. If a court nonetheless ran Robinson's three-factor inquiry (strength of the public interest; nature of the prior right; extent of the impairment), the draft is built for it: Section 1's findings evidence the public interest (the criminal-evidence rationale); the "prior right" impaired is at most an inchoate expectancy in a clock that had not run; and the impairment is bounded — a defined base period, a fixed floor, repose untouched.
- Open courts is a shield here, not a sword. Art. I, §13 limits the Legislature's power to cut off established claims unreasonably (Trinity River Authority v. URS Consultants; Nelson v. Krusen; Sax v. Votteler). This bill expands access, so open courts is no obstacle to it. The current rule's fit with the Nelson/Sax line — a claim cut off before the claimant had a reasonable opportunity to discover it — is uncomfortable, but no Texas court has held §16.003(b) unconstitutional on that basis, and the bill is presented as the Legislature fixing a problem, not as compliance with a judicial command. Advocates should not overclaim a constitutional entitlement in testimony. (Ex post facto, art. I, §16's other clause, is a criminal-law prohibition and is not engaged by a civil limitations rule; the federal constitution has no general civil-retroactivity ban — the fight, if any, is under the Texas clause only.)
- Texas law already accepts the underlying logic. When a claimant timely sues and a defendant designates a responsible third party late, §33.004(e) allows a claim against that third party that is "barred by limitations" to be filed within sixty days of designation — a legislative judgment that a party revealed late in litigation should not be immunised by a clock that ran before they were identified (the provision revives limitations-barred claims but not repose-extinguished ones, which is the same line this bill draws). The draft states expressly that the two periods operate independently and the claimant takes the later deadline, to avoid double-counting arguments.
Known seams — flagged for the author and Legislative Council
Published here deliberately: a bill page that hides its drafting issues will not survive staff review, and these are mechanical rather than substantive.
- Placeholder section number. The new Chapter 16 section is drafted as "16.0___" — the next available number is a Legislative Council assignment, unverified in research. The same conforming pass should settle the §101.101(d) lettering: a structural check indicates (d) is the correct next subsection (the current section runs (a) notice, (b) charter provisions, (c) actual-notice exception, which the draft's "notwithstanding (a) and (b)" correctly leaves intact), but the quoted text still has to be conformed against the official current §101.101 before filing.
- Conclusion versus vacatur. Conclusion fires at verdict or plea and is not postponed by appeal — the ruled design. But a granted motion for new trial vacating the verdict, or a plea later withdrawn or set aside, is not addressed in the text: whether the resumed clock and the first prosecution's spent "conclusion" govern, or the continuation is still the first prosecution, would be left to construction. Verdict-then-new-trial-then-retrial is this bill's paradigm case shape, so the interaction should be resolved in text, not litigated into existence.
- Dismissal, then re-indictment. A dismissal is a conclusion; a later re-indictment is a later qualifying prosecution that cannot re-engage the floor or the lag under the first-prosecution-only rule. The sequence — indictment, dismissal, clock resumes, re-indictment years later, second prosecution — can therefore consume the family's balance during the second prosecution. That is a consequence of the ruled first-case design, adopted knowingly and flagged here so the author takes the committee question with open eyes: expect a proposed amendment (a second tolling for a re-indictment of the same defendant on the same facts) that the current design does not contain.
- Reach of "homicide case." The definition requires conduct constituting an offence under Penal Code Chapter 19. Deaths charged as intoxication manslaughter (§49.08) or under other non-Chapter-19 death offences probably fall within the fact-based test (reckless manslaughter covers much of the ground) — but "probably" will be litigated. An express inclusion-or-exclusion decision in Council drafting is cleaner.
- Survival actions swept in, unruled. The base subsection is drafted to "an action for injury resulting in death under Chapter 71," which includes survival actions (§71.021) as well as wrongful-death actions (§71.002), while the design rulings speak in terms of wrongful-death claims and §71.004 beneficiaries. The sweep may be right, but it is broader than the ruled subject and needs an express author/Council decision rather than silence.
- Commencement trigger slightly wider than ruled. The ruled trigger is indictment. The draft adds information-based commencement where indictment is waived or not required — a conforming detail, deletable without affecting the design, but unruled and flagged as such.
- Coordination subsection unverified. The subsection making the new period and §33.004(e)'s designated-person period run independently (claimant takes the later deadline) rests on research that was not verified against the current text of §33.004(e); Council should conform it.
Sources
- Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Chapter 16 (official Legislative Council text): tcss.legis.texas.gov
- Va. Code §8.01-229 (official text): law.lis.virginia.gov
- O.C.G.A. §9-3-99: law.justia.com
- 18 U.S.C. §1595 (civil remedy; §1595(b) stay during criminal action): codes.findlaw.com
- Robinson v. Crown Cork & Seal Co., 335 S.W.3d 126 (Tex. 2010): caselaw.findlaw.com
- Texas Civil Justice League, statement of principles: tcjl.com