§ 15.086.Counties

The justice court half of the rule that a county defends at home.

A suit against a county shall be brought in the precinct in which the county seat of that county is located.

Read it with the district court provision, which requires an action against a county to be brought in that county. Together they answer both levels: that section picks the county, this one picks the precinct within it.

The county seat is where the county's offices, records, and attorneys are, so the choice spares county officials a trip across what can be an enormous county — several Texas counties are larger than some states.

The venue is mandatory. There is no population threshold and no inconvenience exception, matching the district court rule and unlike the provision for other political subdivisions, which protects only those in counties of 100,000 or fewer people.

Note that it names "that county"’s county seat, closing the gap that would otherwise open where the suit is filed in a different county: the precinct is the one containing the defendant county's own seat.

As always, venue is not liability. A claim against a county still has to survive governmental immunity, which the Tort Claims Act waives only in defined circumstances and only after its own notice requirement is met.