§ 14.013.Review and Recommendation by Magistrates

A referral mechanism, established by rule rather than by statute.

The supreme court shall, by rule, adopt a system under which a court may refer a suit governed by this chapter to a magistrate for review and recommendation.

The delegation is mandatory as to the system and permissive as to its use. The supreme court must adopt it; a court may refer.

The purpose is volume. Screening a filing under this chapter means checking a previous-filings affidavit against court records, verifying grievance dates, reviewing a trust account statement, and assessing frivolousness — work that consumes judicial time on cases most of which will be dismissed.

A magistrate reviewing and recommending leaves the decision with the judge while moving the examination elsewhere.

"Review and recommendation" is the operative limit. The magistrate does not dismiss; the referring court acts on the recommendation.

Subsection (b) addresses funding: the system may be funded from money appropriated to the supreme court or from money received through interagency contract.

The interagency route is the notable option, since it allows the agency whose facilities generate the filings to contribute to the cost of reviewing them.

Subsection (c) was repealed in 2025, by the same act that trimmed a number of provisions across this code.

The civil commitment chapter carries an identical provision, adopted when that chapter was written on this one’s model.