§ 27.007.Additional Findings

A findings requirement attached to the sanctions half of the remedy.

Subsection (a): if the court awards sanctions under the damages and costs provision, it shall issue findings regarding whether the legal action was brought to deter or prevent the moving party from exercising constitutional rights and is brought for an improper purpose, including to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or to increase the cost of litigation.

The trigger is sanctions, not dismissal. A movant who wins dismissal and recovers fees does not automatically get findings; the sanctions award is what brings this section into play.

That distinction matters because the two remedies say different things. Fees follow from the claim being subject to dismissal; sanctions carry a judicial statement about why the case was brought.

Findings of that kind have consequences beyond the case. A judicial finding that a party sued to suppress the exercise of constitutional rights, or to harass, follows them — into related litigation, into any professional consequences for counsel, and into the public record.

Subsection (b) puts a clock on it: findings must issue not later than the 30th day after the date a request is made.

The drafting of subsection (b) is odd. It refers to "a request under that subsection", but subsection (a) does not describe a request — it states an obligation. Read together, the practical effect is that a party may request findings and the court has 30 days to produce them.

The 30 days fits the chapter’s pattern of short, fixed deadlines and keeps the findings available in time for an appeal.