§ 16.066.Action on Foreign Judgment

Two independent bars on enforcing an out-of-state or foreign-country judgment in Texas.

Subsection (a) imports the rendering jurisdiction’s law. An action on a foreign judgment is barred in Texas if it is barred under the laws of the jurisdiction where rendered. A judgment dead at home is dead here.

That is the sensible rule: Texas has no reason to give a judgment more life than the state that issued it.

Subsection (b) is the Texas-specific cap. An action against a person who has resided in this state for 10 years before the action may not be brought on a foreign judgment rendered more than 10 years before the action is commenced here.

Both conditions must be satisfied, which is easy to misread. The defendant must have lived in Texas for ten years and the judgment must be more than ten years old. Someone who moved here last year gets nothing from this subsection however old the judgment is.

The logic is settled expectations. A person who has built a life in Texas for a decade should not be pursued indefinitely on a judgment from a former home, and ten years of residence is the marker the Legislature chose.

Subsection (c) defines "foreign judgment" broadly — a judgment or decree rendered in another state or a foreign country. So a sister-state judgment and an overseas one are treated alike.

The section governs an action on a judgment. Domestication of a sister-state judgment under the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act is a separate route with its own requirements, though these bars inform when that route is available.