§ 16.063.Temporary Absence from State

One sentence with a long history and a contested modern application.

The absence from this state of a person against whom a cause of action may be maintained suspends the running of the applicable statute of limitations for the period of the person’s absence.

The rule was written for a world without long-arm jurisdiction. A defendant who left the state was beyond reach in fact: no service, no judgment, no remedy. Suspending the clock while that was true prevented a defendant from waiting out a claim by leaving.

Texas now reaches nonresidents routinely, through the long-arm statute and substituted service on the secretary of state, so the original justification has largely dissolved. Courts have narrowed the section accordingly, and the argument that it should not toll against a defendant who was amenable to service throughout is the one that decides most disputes about it.

Note that it is written around the defendant only. A plaintiff who leaves Texas gains nothing; the section names the person against whom a cause of action may be maintained.

"For the period of the person’s absence" makes the tolling proportional, not a flat extension. Repeated short absences add up, and a defendant who lived abroad for six years suspends six years.

That proportionality is also why the section is difficult to plead well: a claimant relying on it has to account for the defendant’s movements over the whole period, which is often exactly what they cannot do.

Two neighbouring provisions cover related situations from the other direction — the twelve-month suspension on death, and the rule for a debt incurred before the debtor moved to Texas.