§ 15.087.Option: Suit in Defendant's County of Residence

A safety valve that runs through the whole subchapter.

A suit to which a permissive venue section of this subchapter applies may be brought and maintained either in the county provided for by that section or in the county in which the defendant resides.

The effect is to confirm that the permissive sections add rather than replace. Without it, a plaintiff with a tort claim might read the tort provision — the precinct where the injury was inflicted — as the only option, when the defendant's home precinct remains available under the general rule.

Note that the section speaks of the county, not the precinct. The general rule supplies the precinct: county and precinct where one or more defendants reside.

It applies only to the permissive sections, which is where the line matters. The mandatory ones — eviction in the precinct of the premises, a county at its county seat, an estate representative in the administration county — are unaffected, and a plaintiff cannot use this section to escape them.

Distinguishing the two is therefore the practical task, and the statutory verbs do it: the permissive sections say may, the mandatory ones say shall.

The provision is most useful to a plaintiff who wants the defendant's home precinct for a reason of their own — a defendant with assets there, or a court closer to the plaintiff than the place of injury.