§ 17.092.Service on Nonresident Utility Supplier

A targeted service provision for a category of defendant that operates in Texas without being of Texas.

A nonresident individual or partnership that supplies gas, water, electricity, or other public utility service to a city, town, or village in Texas may be served by serving the local agent, representative, superintendent, or person in charge of the nonresident’s business.

Note the defendants it names: an individual or a partnership. Corporations are absent, and are served under the general provisions for corporate service instead. The section fills the gap left where an unincorporated supplier has no registered agent to serve.

Four categories of local person will do, and the breadth is deliberate: agent, representative, superintendent, or person in charge. A plaintiff need not identify a formally appointed agent, which is exactly what an out-of-state partnership may not have.

The justification is that the defendant is physically present through its operations. A utility supplying a Texas town has pipes, wires, staff, and a local operation — so someone in charge of it can be found and served, whatever the ownership structure behind them.

"Or other public utility service" keeps the list open, so the provision is not confined to the three named commodities.

The mention of a village alongside a city and town dates the provision, and reflects an era in which small municipal utilities were commonly supplied by out-of-state operators.

The foreign railway provision that follows performs the same service for another industry with Texas operations and out-of-state ownership.