§ 15.015.Counties

Six words of operative text: an action against a county shall be brought in that county.

The rule is old and absolute. A county defends in its own courthouse, before jurors drawn from its own residents, at no travel cost to its officials.

For a plaintiff this can be uncomfortable — the jury pool consists of the county's own taxpayers, who bear the cost of an adverse judgment. But the provision is mandatory and admits no balancing. There is no inconvenience exception and no population threshold.

Contrast the neighbouring provision for other political subdivisions, which gives home-county venue only where the county population is 100,000 or less. Counties themselves get it whatever their size, so a suit against Harris County is tried in Harris County.

It is enforceable by mandamus like every mandatory provision in this subchapter, and it survives joinder: a claim against a county pulls related claims into that county under the multiple-claims rule.

Note that the section governs venue, not immunity. Getting the county right does not mean the claim proceeds — governmental immunity is waived only to the extent the Tort Claims Act allows, and its notice requirement runs on its own short clock.

The justice court subchapter carries a parallel rule for suits against a county in that forum.