§ 14A.002.Scope of Chapter

The scope provision, and it tracks the inmate chapter with one difference in the list of courts.

The chapter applies only to an action, including an appeal or original proceeding, brought by a civilly committed individual in a district, county, or justice court or an appellate court, including the supreme court or the court of criminal appeals, in which an affidavit or unsworn declaration of inability to pay costs is filed.

The inmate chapter’s list adds small claims courts; this one does not. The difference reflects when each was written rather than a policy choice — the small claims courts were folded into the justice courts, and this later chapter was drafted accordingly.

The affidavit remains the trigger, as it is throughout this family of chapters. A committed individual who pays the filing fee is outside the chapter and litigates on ordinary terms.

That is worth emphasising here, because the confinement is not the point. The chapter regulates litigation at public expense, and the status matters only in combination with the affidavit.

Appeals and original proceedings are covered, so the requirements follow a claim upward rather than falling away above the trial court.

Subsection (b) excludes actions brought under the Family Code, on the same terms as the inmate chapter.

The exclusion has particular force for this population. Commitment is indefinite, and a person may be in the programme for many years while parental rights, divorce and support questions continue.

Note what the general affidavit chapter does not say. That chapter excludes claims governed by chapter 14 by name; it was never amended to mention this one.