§ 16.061.Rights Not Barred

The Texas expression of the old principle that time does not run against the sovereign.

A right of action of this state or a political subdivision of the state is not barred by any of the sections the provision enumerates — which is nearly the whole chapter: the general periods, the adverse possession periods, the real property lien periods, the residual period, the tolling provisions, and two sections outside the chapter.

The list of entities is specific rather than general, and worth reading: a county, an incorporated city or town, a navigation district, a municipal utility district, a port authority, an entity acting under Chapter 54 of the Transportation Code, a school district, and entities created under the two constitutional provisions the section names.

Because the list is closed, the question for any governmental body is whether it is on it. An entity that is not — and Texas has a great many special districts and authorities — takes the ordinary periods like anyone else.

Subsection (b) defines three of the categories by reference elsewhere, tying navigation districts and municipal utility districts to the constitutional provisions under which they are organised, and port authority to the Water Code.

The rationale is that a government cannot watch everything. Public property and public claims are administered by officials who change, across holdings on a scale no individual owner would have, and a limitations bar would let public rights be lost through institutional inattention rather than any decision.

The exemption runs one way. It protects the government’s right of action; it says nothing about claims against a governmental unit, which face limitations as usual and, under the Tort Claims Act, a notice requirement far shorter than any period in this chapter.

Read it with the public-use bar in the adverse possession subchapter, which protects dedicated public land by a different route.