How far before hearing must a Texas Rule 91a motion be filed?

Obtain the actual hearing or submission setting, not merely a proposed date.

Identify the motion’s filing and first challenged-pleading service on the movant.

Check any timely challenged-cause amendment and an amended motion under Rule 91a.5(b).

1. Obtain the actual hearing or submission setting, not merely a proposed date.
2. Preserve at least twenty-one days between actual motion filing and the hearing or submission. Independently check Rule 91a.3(a)’s sixty-day service-based filing limit. Neither interval displaces the other.
3. Read the actual order and confirm every stated condition.
4. Complete the act required by the rule, not merely a date calculation.

Rule 4 excludes the controlling event. For periods longer than five days, intermediate weekends and legal holidays count. Do not automatically move a backward latest filing or notice date forward and shorten the required interval. Establish the actual hearing, legally relevant holidays, court calendar and any leave or order. This guide makes no automatic backward closed-day adjustment.

The guide does not calculate a backward date or pretend that one interval establishes compliance with the full dismissal timetable.

Covered causes and motion content

Rule 91a.1 excludes Family Code cases and cases governed by Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 14. Rule 91a.2 requires the motion to identify each challenged cause and specify why it has no basis in law, fact or both. Its timing does not decide those grounds.

Actual amended motion restarts periods

After a timely amendment of the challenged cause under Rule 91a.5(b), the movant may withdraw or file an amended motion directed to it before the hearing. An amended motion filed in accordance with that subdivision restarts Rule 91a’s periods under .5(d). The respondent’s amendment alone is not an automatic restart.

Submission also counts as a hearing

The 2013 Rule 91a comment states that hearing includes submission and oral hearing. Dispensing with oral argument does not dispense with the motion-to-hearing interval or each party’s notice.

• This guide does not establish the actual pleadings, service, calendar, legal entitlement or terms of a signed order.
• The current consolidation date does not decide historical applicability of an individual amendment.

• Obtain the actual hearing or submission setting, not merely a proposed date.
• Identify the motion’s filing and first challenged-pleading service on the movant.
• Check any timely challenged-cause amendment and an amended motion under Rule 91a.5(b).
• Rule 91a.1 excludes Family Code cases and cases governed by Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 14. Rule 91a.2 requires the motion to identify each challenged cause and specify why it has no basis in law, fact or both. Its timing does not decide those grounds.
• After a timely amendment of the challenged cause under Rule 91a.5(b), the movant may withdraw or file an amended motion directed to it before the hearing. An amended motion filed in accordance with that subdivision restarts Rule 91a’s periods under .5(d). The respondent’s amendment alone is not an automatic restart.
• The 2013 Rule 91a comment states that hearing includes submission and oral hearing. Dispensing with oral argument does not dispense with the motion-to-hearing interval or each party’s notice.
• File the actual motion identifying each challenged cause and specifying the asserted lack of a basis in law, fact or both. Preserve filing and service, and give the separate hearing notice under Rule 91a.6. File the actual required document with the clerk and complete the separately required service under Rule 21a. Rule 21(f)(5) ordinarily requires electronic filing before midnight in the court’s time zone. Preserve transmission to the electronic filing service provider, the filing receipt, service evidence and any specific order. A calculation does not prove legal sufficiency or grant relief.