§ 113.005.No Waiver of Immunity to Suit in Federal Court

A single sentence with a jurisdictional target.

The waiver stops at the state courthouse door. The chapter does not waive sovereign immunity to suit in federal court.

Consent to be sued in one forum is not consent in another. A state may open its own courts to a claim while keeping the constitutional protection it holds against suit in federal court.

Texas writes this reservation into its contract waivers as a matter of course. Chapter 114 carries the identical sentence for state agency contracts.

The practical effect is a forum rule. A purchaser suing on a water supply contract brings the case in state court.

It also shapes removal. A claim that exists only because this chapter waived immunity carries that waiver’s limits with it.

Read with Section 113.006, the two sections mark the outer edges of the waiver: not in federal court, and not for torts.

The chapter’s own definition points the same way. Section 113.001 describes adjudicating a claim as suit prosecuted to final judgment in court, or arbitration under the contract’s mandatory procedures.

Contractual arbitration is unaffected by the forum reservation. An agreement to arbitrate operates on its own terms, and this section speaks to suit in federal court.