§ 147.045.Notice Stays Proceedings

One sentence supplying the breathing space the notice regime depends on.

All proceedings in the action are stayed for 60 days following the date the defendant received the notice.

The stay is automatic. No motion, no order, no showing — it follows from receipt.

It exists because the notice is meant to produce something. The two sections that follow give the defendant a right to inspect the affected product and a right to offer to settle, and neither is worth much if the litigation continues while they are exercised.

Sixty days is matched to the settlement machinery. The offer provision gives a claimant 30 days to accept, so the stay accommodates an inspection, an offer, and a decision.

The stay applies where notice is given after filing too, under the subsections allowing that for imminent limitations and for defensive claims. In those cases the action has commenced, and the stay pauses it from receipt.

"All proceedings" is unqualified, so discovery and motion practice stop along with everything else.

The section is short because it needs to be. A stay with conditions attached would generate its own litigation, which is precisely what the notice regime was designed to avoid.