§ 114.005.Contractual Adjudication Procedures Enforceable

The waiver does not erase the process the parties agreed to follow.

Adjudication procedures stated in the contract are enforceable, and so are procedures established by the agency and expressly incorporated into it.

Two examples are named: requirements for serving notices, and requirements to engage in alternative dispute resolution before bringing a suit or an arbitration proceeding.

Notice provisions are the ones that end cases. Public construction contracts commonly require written notice of a claim within days of the event, and a contractor who missed that step arrives in court having lost the point already.

Pre-suit mediation clauses are enforceable on the same footing. The chapter opens the courthouse without excusing the steps the parties put ahead of it.

The exception is a conflict with the chapter. A contract procedure yields to the extent it conflicts with these sections, so a clause purporting to allow damages the chapter forbids does not survive.

Incorporation matters for agency-written procedures. Rules the agency established are enforceable when they are expressly incorporated into the contract, which puts them in front of the contractor before signing.

Compliance is therefore part of the claim. A contractor who wants to sue under this chapter has to show that the contract’s own steps were followed before the suit was filed.

The exception keeps the chapter on top. A procedure that conflicts with these sections yields to the extent of the conflict, so an agency cannot use its own rules to take back what the waiver gives.