§ 11.052.Stay of Proceedings on Filing of Motion

An automatic stay, and it is what makes the 90-day deadline necessary.

On the filing of a motion under Section 11.051, the litigation is stayed and the moving defendant is not required to plead — if the motion is denied, before the 10th day after the date it is denied, or if the motion is granted, before the 10th day after the date the defendant receives written notice that the plaintiff has furnished the required security.

The stay is automatic. No order is required and no showing is made; filing produces it.

That is a considerable power in a defendant’s hands, and the chapter constrains it by time rather than by merit — the motion must come within 90 days of the defendant’s first filing, and a defendant who misses that window cannot obtain the stay at all.

The ten-day periods are measured from different events, and the difference matters. A denial starts the clock on its own date. A grant starts it only when the defendant receives written notice that security has been furnished, so a defendant is not required to monitor the registry to know when to plead.

Where security is ordered and never furnished, no deadline to plead ever arrives — and the litigation is dismissed as to that defendant instead.

Subsection (b) covers the motion filed at or after trial: the litigation is stayed for a period the court determines.

Here the automatic stay gives way to a judicial one, which is the sensible arrangement — a fixed automatic stay in the middle of a trial would waste a jury and a setting.