§ 12.003.Cause of Action

Standing and two substantive rules, and the last is the most useful in practice.

Eight categories may sue to enjoin a violation or recover damages: the attorney general, a district attorney, a criminal district attorney, a county attorney with felony responsibilities, a county attorney, a municipal attorney, the person against whom a fraudulent judgment lien is rendered, and the obligor, debtor, or owner of an interest in property subject to a fraudulent lien.

Six of the eight are public officials, which is unusual for a damages statute. Fraudulent filings are aimed at public servants and clog public records, so public enforcement sits alongside the private claim.

Subsection (b) removes a duty that would otherwise be paralysing. Nobody — and no title insurance licensee — has a duty to disclose a fraudulent court record, document, or instrument purporting to create a lien or assert a claim to real property in connection with a sale, mortgage or other transfer.

Without that, a bogus filing would stop transactions. A title company obliged to disclose every fraudulent lien in the records would have to treat obvious nonsense as a title problem, and the filing would achieve its purpose.

Subsection (c) is the provision that clears the record: a purported judgment lien issued or purportedly issued by a court or a purported court other than a court established under the laws of this state or the United States is void and has no effect in determining title or right to property.

That is aimed at the self-declared tribunal. Filings from bodies styling themselves common law courts or citizens’ grand juries are void by operation of this subsection, without any proceeding.

"Void and has no effect" is what allows a title examiner to ignore such an instrument rather than requiring an action to remove it.