§ 17.030.Return of Service

A 2011 provision that modernised the return of service, and it does so by directing rulemaking rather than by prescribing the form itself.

The supreme court shall adopt rules requiring a person who serves process to complete a return of service. Two things those rules must provide: the return is not required to be endorsed or attached to the original process, and it may be electronically filed. Both changes were necessary for electronic filing to work at all — the old practice of physically endorsing the original process has no digital equivalent.

Ten items the rules may require: the cause number and case name; the court; the date and time process was received for service; the person or entity served; the address served; the date of service; the manner of delivery; a description of the process served; the name of the person serving; and, for a supreme-court-certified process server, that server's identification number.

Subsection (c) replaces verification with a perjury declaration. A certified process server, or a person authorized outside Texas to serve process, shall sign the return under penalty of perjury, and the return is not required to be verified. No notary is needed — the signature carries the same weight.

Subsection (d) supplies the teeth. A person who knowingly or intentionally falsifies a return of service may be prosecuted for tampering with a governmental record under Chapter 37 of the Penal Code. Since a default judgment rests on the return being true, a false one is a route to a judgment against someone who never learned of the suit.