§ 17.029.Service on Inmate of Texas Department of Criminal Justice

A 2011 provision solving a practical problem: how to serve someone the state is holding.

"Inmate" means a person confined in a facility operated by or under contract with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In a civil action against an inmate, citation or other civil process may be served on the inmate by serving a person designated as an agent.

The designation is mandatory. The warden of each facility shall designate an employee at that facility to serve as agent for service of civil process on inmates confined there. Every facility has one; a plaintiff does not need to negotiate access.

Subsection (d) closes the loop: the designated employee shall promptly deliver any civil process served on the employee to the appropriate inmate. Service on the agent is not a legal fiction — the statute requires actual delivery, which is what makes the notice adequate.

The section pairs with the venue rule placing an inmate's own claims in the county where the facility sits. Together they make a facility both the place an inmate sues and the place an inmate is sued.