§ 15.019.Inmate Litigation

Claims arising inside a correctional facility are venued at the facility rather than wherever the inmate or the department might otherwise be sued.

An action that accrued while the plaintiff was housed in a facility operated by or under contract with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice must be brought in the county where the facility is located. For a suit by two or more such plaintiffs, venue lies in a county where a facility housing one of them is located.

The rule keeps witnesses, records, and the defendant staff in the county of trial, which matters when the witnesses are officers and other inmates who cannot travel freely.

Two carve-outs. Mandamus against the head of a state department goes to Travis County under the earlier section, which is excepted expressly. And the section does not apply to an action brought under the Family Code — an inmate's divorce or parental rights case follows family law venue rules instead.

The provision sits alongside the separate inmate litigation chapters governing affidavits of inability to pay and grievance exhaustion, which are procedural gates rather than venue rules.