§ 10.002.Motion for Sanctions

How a sanctions question reaches the court, by two routes, plus an unusual fee provision.

A party may make a motion for sanctions, describing the specific conduct violating Section 10.001.

"Describing the specific conduct" is a real pleading requirement. A motion asserting that the opponent’s petition is frivolous does not comply; the motion must identify what was signed, which certification it violated, and how.

The court may act on its own initiative by entering an order describing the specific conduct that appears to violate Section 10.001 and directing the alleged violator to show cause why the conduct has not violated that section.

The same specificity is required of the court, which keeps a judge’s own initiative on the same footing as a party’s motion.

Subsection (c) is the section’s most consequential part, and it cuts both ways. The court may award to a party prevailing on a motion under this section the reasonable expenses and attorney’s fees incurred in presenting or opposing the motion.

"Or opposing" is the operative phrase. A party who defeats a sanctions motion may recover the cost of defeating it — so an unfounded sanctions motion carries its own risk.

A second award follows where no due diligence is shown: the court may award the prevailing party all costs for inconvenience, harassment, and out-of-pocket expenses incurred or caused by the subject litigation.

That reaches beyond the motion to the litigation itself, and "inconvenience" and "harassment" are heads of recovery that appear almost nowhere else in this code.