§ 30.004.Notice to Attorney General for Certain Suits

A notice requirement with an automatic remedy attached.

The section applies to a civil case in which the state is named as a party, an executive or legislative department agency is named as a party, or a party may be represented by the attorney general as authorized by Chapter 104.

The third category is broader than it looks. It covers cases where the attorney general may represent a party — state officers and employees sued for conduct in office — even though no state entity is named at all.

On the filing of any petition, a copy shall be mailed to the attorney general at the attorney general's office in Austin, by certified mail, return receipt requested.

Subsection (c) prevents a misunderstanding. Mailing this notice does not satisfy any other jurisdictional requirement relating to service of process on a state officer, board, commission, agency, or institution that is a named party. It is notice to the attorney general, not service on the defendant, and a party who mails the copy and stops there has not served anyone.

Subsection (d) supplies the consequence: failure to give the notice results in any default judgment being set aside without costs. Automatic, and at no cost to the state.

The sanction is confined to default judgments, which is the situation the notice guards against — a judgment entered against the state because the lawyer responsible for defending it never learned of the case.