When must a response to a Texas Rule 91a dismissal motion be filed?

Identify the operative Rule 91a motion and every challenged cause.

Obtain the actual hearing or submission setting and notice.

Check whether a valid amended motion restarts periods and requires a response opportunity.

1. Identify the operative Rule 91a motion and every challenged cause.
2. Compare actual response filing with the hearing or submission and preserve seven days. Count intermediate calendar days under Rule 4. Do not run seven days forward from motion service or import the summary judgment response rule.
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 backward preset cannot establish the operative setting, amendment effects, permitted evidence or a closed-day last filing date.

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.

Pleading decision and fee evidence differ

Rule 91a.6 permits submission without an oral hearing and decides dismissal from the challenged pleading and permitted Rule 59 exhibits, without other evidence except as required for Rule 91a.7. For actions commenced on or after September 1, 2019, .7 permits an evidence-based prevailing-party costs and reasonable necessary trial-court fee award, subject to its governmental-action exception. Earlier actions require the applicable prior fee rule.

Response opportunity after a valid amended motion

The 2013 comment explains that a valid amended motion restarts the court’s forty-five-day period and the respondent must have an opportunity to respond. Use the actual amended motion and setting rather than silently keeping the first motion’s response date.

• 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.

• Identify the operative Rule 91a motion and every challenged cause.
• Obtain the actual hearing or submission setting and notice.
• Check whether a valid amended motion restarts periods and requires a response opportunity.
• 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.
• Rule 91a.6 permits submission without an oral hearing and decides dismissal from the challenged pleading and permitted Rule 59 exhibits, without other evidence except as required for Rule 91a.7. For actions commenced on or after September 1, 2019, .7 permits an evidence-based prevailing-party costs and reasonable necessary trial-court fee award, subject to its governmental-action exception. Earlier actions require the applicable prior fee rule.
• The 2013 comment explains that a valid amended motion restarts the court’s forty-five-day period and the respondent must have an opportunity to respond. Use the actual amended motion and setting rather than silently keeping the first motion’s response date.
• File any elected response within the required interval, addressing the challenged cause and motion. Preserve the pleading, permitted Rule 59 exhibits, filing and required service. Rule 91a.6 confines the dismissal decision to the pleading and those permitted exhibits, apart from the .7 fee evidence. 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.